7 Ghosts
by CurryKing
Summary: The shards of power spread across not just one but many dimensions. In a land guarded by Silver-eyed Witches called Claymores the awakening of supernatural powers causes the relevance of a certain Organization to dwindle. The status quo is about to be shaken and the realm torn apart by factions vying for the seeds of a great entity with one desperate warrior caught in the middle.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I'll be using the setting of Claymore with the addition of some of the mechanics with respect to parahuman powers from worm.

* * *

For People Unfamiliar with Claymore a few terms you'll definitely need to know are:

Yoma: Predators of mankind that exist on the continent our story is set on. They can disguise themselves as humans they eat and even recall the memories of their victims to make their disguise even more convincing. They have enhanced strength, a regenerative factor, and can spear enemies on extendable claws. Some can even grow wings and fly.

Warriors/Hybrids/Claymore/Silver-Eyed Witches: Developed by the Organization to fight Yomas and Voracious Eaters for a price. They are said to be made by implanting the flesh and blood of a Yoma into a girl. They possess youki (Yoma energy) that gives them enhanced strength, speed and senses. Their ability to sense the youki of yomas allows them to detect Yoma in disguise. They also wield large claymores to execute Yoma they are contracted to kill. Thus, to the general public they are known as Claymores or Silver-Eyed Witches for their silver eyes and white hair. Amoung themselves, however, they refer to each other as warriors and take pride in standing as humanity's ill-appreciated only line of defense until recently.

Organization: A group that occupies the barren Eastern lands in a location called staff where they collect orphans or children who are sold by their parents to be experimented upon and turned into Human-Yoma Hybrids. Their customary form of dress is to wear all black. They also collect exorbitant and painfully high fees from villages and towns in exchange for sending one of their warriors to cleanse it from Yoma.

Voracious Eaters/Awakened ones: They are referred to as voracious eaters when the Organization or its warriors interact with the public. They claim these are long-lived Yoma who have managed to evolve. There are some whispers, however, that these Yomas who can easily massacre whole villages by brute force are actually former warriors. This theory has never been corroborated, but it is known that warriors are sometimes known to shout to one another in battles with these voracious eaters to be careful to not go over some limit...

Dragon's-kin/Descendents: A word known only to the black coated men of the organization. It is spoken of with fear and hatred.

* * *

If you're unfamiliar with the Worm, it suffices to know that in Worm after a certain event people begin to appear with super powers. This occurs not just in one world but across the multiverse. In order to awaken their power a person needs to be given a tremendously traumatic experience (i.e. worst day of your life level awful).

* * *

Prologue: Those Who Awaken and The One Who Slumbers

"No, no no, no."

A girl no older than 8 lay craddling in her arms a fallen number 2.

Behind her a rookie claymore wipes her blade clean and returns it to her sheath. The stress of the battle nearly overwhelmed her control, but the new power she walks away with is like pure ecstasy in her veins.

"The traitor has been punished." She said with disdain when her three comrades arrive.

"Wow, the newbie took down Teresa when even Ilena, me and Hailey couldn't touch her." Mentioned a short haired warrior.

"Did you awaken a power?" Asked Ilena.

"Yes, I don't know how to use it yet," she said with a slightly confused frown. "But it knocked us both out temporarily. I was just able to recover a little faster." Added Priscilla with frustration.

"A win is a win." Said Ilena wistfully.

"I think the girl possess a power as well. She was also knocked off her feet. She recovered first, though, so I can't be sure."

"You're right." Ilena confirmed.

"I knew Teresa wouldn't have deserted for just anybody. I wonder what her power was supposed to do. Probably boost their stealth or act as support. Maybe that's how she was so much stronger today." Mentioned Hailey, the weakest but eldest there.

"Let's take her with us. Headquarters is always looking for new powers to experiment with and even if it's not useful for research she might make a good warrior. Besides, I doubt she'd have any better of a life as an orphan with a power around here."

"Fine." Since powers had only emerged in their generation little was known about how they worked, except they tended to emerge when in despair and under great stress. In order to maximize the strength of the next generation and the available research subjects, the organization prioritized making new warriors from people who already had powers, or people closely related to those with powers.

Unspoken was the knowledge that if she wasn't kidnapped by the organization she'd just be snatched and enslaved by someone else. Given this was near the border of Toulaine and Lautrec it was even odds whether she'd go east or head west as tribute to the Empress.

Ilena studied the girl.

 _(A dark room wrapped in silent screaming. A brother who was not a brother.)_

She moved forward to take the girl.

 _(Bruises on her stomach, back and thighs, but never anywhere visible. Her throat clamped tight with fear. She did not want to eat it)_

She refused to flinch even when she had to pry her away from the corpse she was clinging to.

 _(Her weakness. Her helplessness. Her uselessness. Everything reinforced a thousand fold_.)

"We will give it a proper burial, child. Now come with us." She was wary of any surprises, but as she'd suspected her power did not seem related to direct combat. Strangely, she also doubted her power was suited towards combat support.

While Hailey may believe she had lost today because of this girl's power, Ilena felt an almost inward fixation in it. Teresa had bested them today, and she'd done it alone. If not for a quirk of fate she likely would have killed even Priscilla. She had done it all with a power that Ilena had thought all but useless for combat. It was humbling.

"What? We're giving that traitor a proper burial. We ought to just leave the corpse out for the retrieval squad." Said Priscilla.

"If they want it they can dig it up. I'm not leaving it out."

The girl continued to struggle.

 _(A cliff. Is this the end?...I will follow you. To the end of the earth or even beneath it.)_

She was about to warn her comrades about their newest charge being possibly suicidal when she saw the girl stare up at Priscilla. On her face, a rictus of hate and despair.

 _(She's rising! My legs...I throw myself in front. Finally, at las-No! No, no, no, no it should have been me. Why? WHY? Don't touch me. You should have left me behi-MverSilAirprofSwoFaiRdntIleHMeeoriDonAbonEs...)_

'What was that? It didn't make sense, but there was some...weight to it. Like nothing she'd sensed before.' Thought Ilena.

"Hailey, take the child."

"You sure she's safe?"

"Pretty sure her power has something to do with knowledge." Ilena said passing the stiff child to her. "Sophia help me create a hole." She glanced at Priscilla then changed her mind.

A while later the armor around Sophia dispelled and a hole had been cleared. Ilena rolled Teresa into it. It didn't fit. Priscilla trimmed the feet off and they rearranged her before covering her, and placing her blade pommel and hilt face up upon it.

The blade custom could not be observed with the danger of grave robbing and it falling into the hands of someone with enhanced strength and endurance who would wield it against them.

"This is the end that awaits you if you betray the organization." Whispered Hailey with resignation.

"But you'll probably be eaten by something first. Hopefully we can give it a bellyache going down and coming out." Said Sophia with a nasty grin. Storm Rain Hailey attempted to swipe her head, but the blow was dodged. Then she grabbed the blade of the former number 2 and it vanished before their eyes. The child sagged when she saw this.

"Enough. Let's hurry back." Said Ilena picking up the silent child. A carefully controlled blow to the back of the head knocked her out. She would awaken in a carriage heading East carrying one other child, two men in black suits and a single warrior.

* * *

Omake: A Study of the "Unnamed Island"

In the first decade following the emergence of Hunters, there was strong support for withdrawing all usable assets from the Unnamed Island, and sealing off all research projects there. The general sentiment was that these hunters were exactly what they'd tried and failed to achieve for well over a century.

The only thing that stayed their hand was reports of a few descendants or dragon's kin using terrifying, unnatural powers on the battlefield. To combat them a testing facility study the possible interactions of these powers with the similar ones wielded by awakened hybrids was proposed with an emphasis on analyzing hidden dangers and weaknesses. It was also proposed that these powers may hold a key to successfully weaponizing hybridization.

A condition of the mainland's continued support was that Staff now serve as recruiters shipping as many prospective hunters as they could afford back to the homeland. Those leftover were generally people with powers less useful for direct combat such as knowledge, skill granting, or innovator abilities. Later when higher-ups realized the usefulness of innovators when used in groups or with sufficient material support, these two would be shipped off. Of course, a variety of combat powers deemed too weak to be useful were also left to be experimented upon.

In order to collect recruits, kidnapping, blackmail and human trafficking occurred at the hands of unmodified guards and the obedient warriors or failed warriors. This, unfortunately, lead to the deterioration of the Organization's already poor reputation as they were seen as attempting to maintain their monopoly on force.

Predictions that the presence of powers may be related to ones family and blood seemed to pan out for at least the first generation. This led to many unsuccessful attempts at breeding programs.

The gravest mistake was the failure to quickly grasp that although the humans being numerically superior tended to have far more Hunters, the higher quality of Hunters tended to come from stronger beings. This meant hybrids, descendants, and especially powerful awakened hybrids tended to acquire the best powers. Meeting the qualifications to acquire these powers was often an issue, since they far less likely to meet with tragedy and trauma, but for those that did the most frightening abilities tended to appear.

By the time this fact was recognized the Organization's position on the Unnamed Island was already heavily compromised with a smaller corps of only 40 warriors, made up of those with noncombat powers, weak powers or no powers at all. Little could be done too about the angered populace who had begun mustering around rival coalitions of Hunters.

* * *

AN: Upon this continent the mythos of superheroes does not exist, so rather than calling them capes in the East, headquarters of the organization, they're known simply as "those with powers" or occasionally Hunters although only men dressed in black tended to use that terminology.

To those in Toulouse, dominated by the Holy City of Rabona, it was common to call them the "God-touched" for their superior ability to fight Yomas and voracious eaters. The most prized were those rare ones who could identify yomas or draw them out when they're hiding. They have had limited interaction in any case, with the most troublesome and destructive abilities, that seem concentrated in Alphonse, the frosty north, deep in the jungles of Lautrec in the West, and buried to the South under the sands of Mucha.

Similarly, the word "triggered" is not used to refer to those who receive powers. In the central land of Toulouse the term "touched" is used, while in Sutare, the East, "awaken" has come to refer officially to gaining access to a unique power. Unofficially it is rumored to have another meaning related to releasing youki but this is not spoken of outside the halls of the organization.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1: Pearls

At first they attempted to get me to cooperate with sweet older children asking me to join them. Then came adults to scold or encourage me. Finally, ultimatums with small bribes. None of them moved me.

I hated them.

After that, I joined a new group. This time I starved and struggled to survive. They did everything they could to force me draw on my abilities.

I think I disappointed them.

I had no useful ability to use. The only thing noteworthy was my skill with a staff they gave me. The stances and postures all came to me like it was second nature. Then my mind thought up a thousand ways I was doing it all wrong and could improve.

I survived. I had no time to remember, and a part of me eagerly threw myself into the jaws of each new torture. Another part hated them more and more with each passing day. But they didn't care. As I proved my worthlessness they grew more careless about my survival.

I think they were waiting for me to break. My body broke first.

When I awoke from the second worst agony I had ever felt I was no longer in the pits. I was also missing a hand.

They concluded my only ability was a gift for supernatural skill for using weapons. After I healed I was transferred to a new torture.

They began to implant and transform me just as Teresa had been. The Organization is feared and yet respected since for generations it has helped fight the Yoma.

To fight them they create hybrids implanted with Yoma flesh and blood. Faster, stronger and with senses that let them find the Yoma who hide under disguises and prey us.

The surgery was like being covered in burning coals and then torn open by beasts before having every wound salted. I accepted it, and I tried not to cry. Crying only made the tormentors happier.

I heard them whisper at night about us. They gambled but did not drink. The weakened ones like me and Deirdre held the longest odds. They had let me heal from my injuries but I was still too skinny and light. With only one usable arm, even with my skill, I suspected they did not care much if I lived or died.

Despite the difficulty it was infinitely more bearable. Here at least I saw a purpose. I would become stronger, and I would become closer to Teresa. Some of the other children cried or attempted to escape. They wound up the same as me no matter what. Their weakness disgusted me.

On the three worst days, I could not even manage to keep food down and yet was parched and ached with thirst. It may have been the dizziness, but I got a sense that I had been here before. That this was not entirely new. At first it was a morbid comfort. Then I vaguely remembered feeling like this for seven days and nights. Each day the thirst grew and each night it abated as I used my humanity. My clenching fist drew blood and in desperation I even drank from the weaker girls there.

I had lived through that? No, it wasn't me. I was not that strong or hardened, yet. A cold voice inside whispered if I experienced that I would have died. I defied it. I could withstand anything. I would withstand this.

Amidst bone deep weariness, I felt a stupid kind of disappointment when my suffering peaked and diminished after three days. My body seemed to signal I was too shallow and weak to have withstood more. I could not even muster myself to deny it. I disgusted myself.

After many days or perhaps weeks (I could not tell), the hard part was over. My hair was still brown, which puzzled me. They told us it would fall out soon and then grow back as white as snow.

Our eyes had begun to change. But left and right the participants in the hybridization process had vanished. They were the ones who had been sickest. They did not return.

When our eyes turned pure silver we left those halls. There were only four of us left. Me, Jacklyn, Selene, and Aimee. As we left I watched a new batch of girls file into the den. They weighed more than us and outnumbered us seven to one. Yet, when they saw us they shrank away from us. I saw the weakness in their faces. We terrified them.

We then became trainees. The young woman who taught us held the silver-hair of hybrids but with a stripe of burnished gold color. It was beautiful, but she glared at any of us who started too long.

We learned to handle our youki. To chain it first and then to channel bits of it. We learned to lie. To lie with our tongues, faces and bodies. Then we learned to fight.

The day we moved from drills to spears a girl with a short bowl hair cut tried to partner with me. She sneered at me and called me a useless cripple before trying to put me in my place-beneath her heel.

It did not go well for her. Even with one hand, I hand done these drills a fifty times more than she had. I had fought spars like this a hundred times over. I had lost a hand to a pack of three prairie hyenas. They had all lost their lives.

I put her arrogant ass in the dirt four times before my stamina began flagging. She was bigger and more muscular than me, so as the period began to end she figured out how to put it to use as my stamina gave out. Still I gave twice as good as I got.

I waited to see her new weakness. Not arrogance. She had accepted that. I expected resentment, and with a trace of despair, but perhaps my falls at the end were enough. She congratulated me for my skill. Her weakness was now her body. Her strength that had let her crack me open would be leaned on even more heavily.

"Thank you. You also managed to outlast me. Be careful to not rely too much on your strength. Your footwork also was too static. It didn't fully leverage or brace against force." I said.

Her smile grew brittle. She left me feeling confused.

In the coming weeks I grew a reputation-for mediocrity. Those with useful powers made one group. Whether it was sensing danger to a bodypart, manipulating morale, or changing into a liquid, impervious form they had an edge. It made a difference.

On the other hand, trainees without powers needed to rely on their raw strength and speed since we were still pretty close in terms of skill.

I could down almost anyone without powers until my stamina gave out. I was working on that, but it was slow to progress.

For those with powers it was the opposite. I could see issues with how they used their abilities, but I refused to exploit them. Anything, which would work on the enemy in front of me, but not her I refused to rely on. I was generally defeated, but not easily. It put me near the middle of the pack.

After a hard match fighting from the extreme outside, I found myself on the ground. I was out of breath. I had lost.

Jacklyn only needed the lightest of scrapes from her blade and she could have you break out in laughter. For others it would be a giggle that jiggled their sword arm. For me it was peels of laughter as I watched the funniest moments of Jacklyn's childhood. It was distracting and lethal.

I wanted to ask for her to spar with me outside of class. I needed to build up more of a resistance like my peers. That was the only reason I asked her. She begged off. I don't think she liked fighting me, or maybe fighting in general.

The instructor, Auburn, came up to me.

"You're falling behind, Clare. You used to be able to beat me the first several times matches no matter what. You've got more stamina, but the matches are also lasting longer, and the skill gap has been shrinking."

I grimaced. It was nothing I didn't already know.

"With just arm you'll have to be a speed fighter, but you're not fighting like one. You may have skills, but they're more suited to a fighter with greater strength."

Then she smirked, and pounded me on the back.

"I'm putting you with the older years for the next week. They're learning about defensive types. If you're lucky you might get that hand back by the end of the year." She said.

I stared after her as she left and then collapsed back to look at the drab stone roof. I refused to hope.

 _That night I saw Teresa in my dreams. She spoke to me but I could not hear anything. She was younger, just a few years older than me. Her hair held back in a single ponytail and in her hands a lifetimes worth of riches. They looked like pearls but shimmered with every color human eyes could see and some that only silver eyes perceived. She was concealing it above her bosom. I watched her dodge men in black uniforms to escape out to a forest and a cave at noon. It was the hottest time of day and training would have been nearly insufferable._

 _She would sift through them carefully, pop one into her mouth, close her eyes and then lay back in bliss. She dreamed within my dream. I couldn't see her dreams but her smile was radiant and contained no weakness. It brought a faint smile, like an echo of her own, to my lips._

I opened my eyes to darkness. When I awakened each morning I remembered a bit more. The harder I fought during the day the deeper I'd sleep and the more I'd recall. I picked up the practice sword we'd recently received and began to work out the stiffness in my muscles. By the time everyone else had awoke, I had a light sheen of condensation-not sweat, condensation.

«***»

Omake: Claymores

Excerpts from the philosophical training stage of a warrior.

 _The warriors are not just humanities only line of defense against the Yoma, but also the greatest danger to humanity. You will be hated and reviled by everyone. They call you out there Claymores not warriors. You are mere tools and weapons to them._

 _They are right to fear you and you must fear yourself. Youki, the energy of Yoma beings perverts and distorts all life. It is addictive and deceptive. The more you use it the harder it becomes to stop using it. If you go too far, use too much of your youki power, then you'll find it impossible to halt your slide down the slippery slope to being consumed by the youki within you. It will consume you and the larvae within you will emerge from your husk as the anathema of everything you are. The first to be consumed and sweetest will be those closest to you._

 _Each day you use youki you feed that larvae a little more. Each deep draw on its strength generates microfractures in the gate that seals your youki. One day you will no longer be able to fight back. On that day, you will perform the greatest deed of your entire career as a warrior and guardian of mankind. You will protect mankind from yourself._

 _Yoma prey on humans, warriors prey on Yoma and Awakened Beings prey on all of the above._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2: The Scar

"The energy of youma, youki, can be directed to either regeneration or reinforcement of the body. Just as a warrior's reinforcement can differ with some getting a lot of speed and a little boost to strength or vice versa, there are also different types of regeneration with some warriors finding themselves better or worse at certain types.

"Regenerating from deep wounds such as a crushed liver and spleen is more about putting the broken pieces back together again. Every warrior is capable of this, but stronger ones will be able to do this faster, and with a lower cost in terms of Youki and physical stamina."

"A much more difficult aspect of regeneration is regenerating lost parts. If you lose a hand, for instance," Said Chloe, looking at me. "You can't just put pieces back together. You need a very crisp, clear image of the flesh you want and then you need to convert Youki into mass and reconstitute through stimulating the surrounding tissues. This takes not just control but a flexible form and body. Warriors whose bodies are optimized for maximum quality output are often too rigid to easily reconstitute pieces of themselves except of vastly inferior quality."

"This is not a criticism of their ability. Many of the best single digit warriors in the organization are of this type, and it is precisely because their forms are superior in terms of strength, speed and dexterity that they have less need to regenerate."

"We break warriors up into two categories: offensive, those with rigid quality based forms, and defensive, who have more flexibility physiologies and can more easily pull off techniques based on quantity."

"These are only rough approximations, though, and there exist plenty of examples of warriors with the capability of drastic body modifications and not limb regeneration such as the former number 1 Roxanne of Love and Hate. Now enter the meditation posture and-what is it?"

A trainee shyly raising her hand put it down. "Yoma can regenerate limbs and extend body parts easily. Does that make them defensive fighters?"

"Yes, and no. When yoma fight they use 100% of their power. When they do this their bodies become far more fluid just as yours would if you were so foolish as to be fully consumed by it. Purely thanks to that I would expect them to be able to perform youki to matter conversion and extreme body transformations."

"That said, Yoma also have far less strength, speed and dexterity compared to a warrior. While some especially old or large ones can match the weakest warriors who number in the high thirties and above, generally they fight by guile, stealth and with superior numbers. This to me sounds like a defensive fighting method." She said arrogantly. There was an ego there, no, an inferiority complex.

"Anyway, focus on your energy and attempt to sense when I come up to cut you. Don't use your ears." I follow her instructions. Those who are slow are smacked.

"When I cut you do not focus on knitting your flesh. Focus instead upon just bringing about 20% of your youki to the wound and holding it there. Do not do anything else."

When my turn comes I sense her power only after she has cut me. It is disappointing, but I am young enough I do not feel any urgency from this.

I dip inside the pot within me. It is like a tube running down the center of my body with a bulge at my navel, and vines spreading out from the tube into the rest of me. Burning coals and chill water that bites flows through it. A drop of sweat falls near my wound before steaming as a little over 20% of my power flows to my cut forearm.

"Clare. You're using too much. Samantha increase it by 20%. Adrianne yours is fluctuating too much and keep it close to the wound."

I know. I'm trying. Over 30 seconds I manage to decrease my flow by about 5%. It's not exactly but close enough.

Chloe examines each of our wounds. She prods mine slightly when it is my turn before moving on.

"Alright. Now I want you to visualize the flesh back to how it was before, but try to imagine the flesh being steeped in this power. It should bubble out from within the wound and fill in the gaps. The energy of youki is chaotic. Don't resist it. Just let it flow and if it's flowing out then let it just keep pumping youki to it from deep below the injury."

We moved on. A couple of trainees began to feel exhausted as we reached the twenty minutes mark. One had lightly tipped colored hair and the other was like me, younger than the others, and pushed into this class early. I did not have any trouble maintaining the flow, but keeping it steady and controlled was a struggle. I needed to make constant adjustments.

Finally, she pronounced the exercise over. Those of us whose wound had not fully healed yet used the older healing method we'd first learned-repairing the damage by using youki to knit and seal the cut from both sides of the wound.

"Alright. Based on my evaluation the following trainees have some talent in regrowing flesh and blood. This may eventually extend to remaking full strength limbs."

She began to list off names. It was longer than I expected, about 60% of us. "...Samantha and Zara." She said.

My name was not called. I was an offensive type. I would not be able to regrow my hand. When we left, I headed back to rejoin my peers for strength and endurance training. I reopened the cut and added new ones. Then I quickly left before anyone could confront me about the blood tinged imprint of my fist on the wall.

I got punished. We had been given a new test. We were to sit within a room and obey every order given to us by a man in black. The orders were often simple, but sometimes humiliating.

The worst was when they commanded us to hurt each other. They did not do so in front of each other, but told me to cut a wound deep enough to scar into the person in the next room. I was also to not say a thing when I did so.

It was Selene. Someone from the same cohort of survivors from being experimented upon. She was the closest person to me. Her eyes were confused, but relieved when she saw me. They wanted me to scar her.

 ** _I did it. It was easy. Over before she knew it. A look of shock and blood that rose a foot and almost splattered me if I did not take a half-step back._**

 ** _I slept that night alone. She did not return to our room. I hated them/myself/everyone. The next day I entered the room and was cut myself. I leaned into it._**

I shook my head and dropped my sword. My mind whispered to me how vulnerable I was now. How this was a test. How their belief in my loyalty would be an opening I could exploit. I saw it then. The reason for the test. My place and how I could feign weakness. Become their instrument in name only. But...

I was. Not. A. Toy.

I raised the blade and cut myself. Deep enough to scar. Upon my mutilated arm. What was one more defilement.

I left the room and entered this one. An isolation chamber. No light, no sound, no treatment for my wounds except my own youki.

I dropped into a cross-legged pose. My hands upon my knees. My eye pointed inward. There was plenty to do.

* * *

Author's Note: Clare's power helps her identify weak points or vulnerabilities. It's set to automatically target herself, so she needs to actively focus it on others if she wants it to help her analyze and figure out anyone else's weaknesses.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3: To the Ends of the Earth and Beneath It

Physically, I will always be forced to play catch up with everyone else. In terms of powers, I can see the weaknesses, vulnerabilities and faultlines of people around me, and especially myself. Still, I am too weak to exploit these openings. I know my problems but that does not fix them. It is useless right now.

In terms of sensing I am merely average. In terms of control and repressing youki I am slightly above average. The only thing in which I truly excel is skill and speed in learning. It is because of these memories.

I saw the weakness in my foe that day. She longs for death. She welcomes it. But Teresa wasn't strong enough to give it to her.

If I am to surpass Teresa, to become better than the genius from my dreams, I need to learn more from her. She is the best teacher I will ever find. I know this.

Here, in the dark for however many days or weeks or months I will chase her. Even if she goes to the ends of the earth or even beneath it, I will follow.

* * *

 _Slice. I sidestep a slow and wide blow. An elbow to the gut and a flip over my knee._

 _"Nice."_

 _He throws three razor sharp cuts. I sense her youki network's flare before she moves. My eyes can barely follow her movements now days, but it does not matter. I am already there._

 _A low swing from Ilena. It kicks of dirt and dust. I close my eyes. After this fight she will know its not my eyes that let me surpass her. In the cloud of dust our blades intertwine and clash and bite one another._

 _At last it end. My sword upon her throat. Her own nicking my forearm guard._

 _"You're getting better Ilena. You shouldn't only rely upon your fast swordsmanship, though. You should be able to move more agilely. Not every awakened being can be taken out in one-shot."_

 _"I suppose you're right. I certainly have more trouble with Sophia than Noel when they double-team me. Still, I have the most trouble with you, and more agility won't get me a win against you."_

 _"That's where you're wrong. You shouldn't aim to beat me. I'm unbeatable."_

 _..._

 _"Ysildre, I came."_

 _"Thank you."_

 _"I never expected you to send me your black card. We've only met on a couple hunts."_

 _"Yes, Teresa of the Faint Smile. Or should I call you Teresa Keeper of Memories."_

 _"No one calls me that."_

 _"Ahh, there is that faint smile." She says nodding at my head. "True, it is a nickname my power suggested, but I doubt it will become popular. After all, the only one I have mentioned it to is you."_

 _"And I think I will take it with me to my grave."_

 _"Oh will you?" She said questioningly._

 _"I think I have a decent reputation for discretion. You're the gossip hound from what I've heard."_

 _"Guilty as charged." Shsid raising her hand shamelessly. "You know, I saw you. Wielding a chain of swords. Fighting a volcano."_

 _"Can't say I've ever picked a fight with a volcano."_

 _"My gift let's me see different versions of us all. Paths we might have taken if not for small or not so small deviations."_

 _"Is it very useful?" I mention finely intrigued. The elemental hitters, reinforcement and dominator type abilities have always been the most boring to me. The ones to do with knowledge and manipulation of powers are the most intriguing and bizarre._

 _"A bit like trying to send messages through interpretive dancing. Anyway, I wanted to speak to you because in most alternatives I've seen you become number 1 and you are quite proud of it."_

 _"Ahh, is it over Ilena's corpse. I always figured I'd outlive her with the way she can get distracted sometimes in battle."_

 _"No, she's sometimes alive and sometimes dead. You wind up dead or awakened pretty soon. Either that or you kill one of the abyssal ones."_

 _Well that's a sobering thought. I'm not sure I like this other me._

 _"So my prophecy is greatness or death, eh? Tell me, in those things you saw did I ever tell you my power?"_

 _"So you do have a power. I've always wondered. But no, you're equally closemouthed in every version I saw where you existed and became a warrior."_

 _"Alright then. I'll tell you what my power is, if you'll take my hand."_

 _I stretch out a hand. She watches it. Then extends and grasps it. A kaleidoscope of possibilities bombards my mind._

 _..._

 _"Have you thought about my offer, child?"_

 _"I have," I said to the priest._

 _"And your answer?"_

 _"No. I love this land. I may hate every living thing upon it, but I love this land. I do not wish to leave it."_

 _"A shame, but very well. I only ask your discretion then."_

 _"And you shall have it." I say to the thing that bears no memories of being human. I attempt one more time to sense something-anything. I still feel nothing._

 _"You are far too dangerous for me to cross. I do not wish to get between any fighting between you and the organization. I do have a question, though."_

 _He inclined his head. "Feel free to ask then, child."_

 _"How old are you?"_

 _He chuckled. "I thought you would ask about our other recruitment efforts or the rebellion or the talk of crusades. But no, you wish to know my age."_

 _"All the other things I could find out from others. This is one question I feel only you can answer."_

 _He studies me. He can probably read me better than I can read myself now days. "Be discreet about this too. I'm more than eleven and a half centuries."_

 _"I thought so."_

 _..._

 _A black hank of hair. I turned away from it._

 _A hundred coins. Blood money._

 _I sat alone in the darkness. It pressed in on me. I pressed back harder._

 _I opened my eyes. Another nightmare of garbled memories. I turned to the auburn head pressed upon my side. I bent down and smelled it. It stank, but beneath that was the smell of eggs, of cattle and of a farm. It brushed something within me. I couldn't remember my past. Buried beneath a hundred other lives worth of stuff._

 _But I knew I had once smelled this._

 _"Wake up Clare. It's time to go."_

I opened my eyes.

I couldn't sense any farther or deeper. I couldn't run any faster or swing my sword any swifter. My sword would not sink any deeper nor would my endurance last longer.

But I remembered.

The words she'd been trying to say to me every night in my dreams.

"Memories are eternal."

Within my cupped palms a small pearl of light twinkled.

* * *

Author's Note: Ysildre's power basically looks through nearby universes and tries to find alternate dimensions that are ahead or around the same time as her own and very similar to her own. Then she witnesses alternate versions of present and future events. She knows her power has poor accuracy, but it is a very broad information gathering power and would be even stronger with help of other thinkers to filter and confirm information gathered in this manner.

By the way, I periodically will take chunks of this story that I'm writing on sufficient velocity ( threads/7-ghosts-claymore-x-worm-au-crossover.30669/) and then repost them here. It may be the case that you can catch more recent chapters if you check over there.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4: A Harsh Tongue

I spent a month in the darkness. After that they took me out and gave me the same test. I passed this time, regretfully. I would have liked to have had more time in isolation with only the memories of Teresa to guide me. They also did not withhold food or drink from me, so I came out stronger and fitter than ever.

After leaving, I took careful note of the performance of my peers. I tailored myself to be average. I did not want to be pulled again to higher level classes because I already possessed the skills they were teaching. That would only accelerate my training, and what I needed most was time.

Digging through her memories I realized the average lifespan of a warrior who was not making the top 29 was one year. The average lifespan of an elitr was only a little better at two years, because they were forced to take more dangerous hunts. Only those who made it to the top five or six tended to live much longer than that. Even then only the ones who demonstrated high levels of loyalty to the organization.

I needed to not only be above average, but have some decent wiggle room too. As it is, half or more of the trainees would probably fail the final exam, and that would not even be the hard part. The hard part was surviving years of missions after that.

I learned that they had begun a mentoring phase where we worked with older trainees to refine our fighting forms, control or sensing. It provided personalized instruction time to fix mistakes. Meanwhile teaching the basics was now partly replaced by lessons in geography, hunting, and teamwork. As pairs we would need to takedown older trainees with with unknown powers. They would restrict themselves to using only their powers and less than 10% of their youki, but we also were not allowed to use lethal or crippling strikes.

In the practice yards their experience meant they had the terrain advantage and generally were familiar with the most common strategies we put together. While it was 2 vs 1 they knew our capabilities, but we were not given information on who they were or what they could do.

I got used to working out plans, and them not fully working. It was usually obvious to me when I saw the older trainee what sort of plan she was using. Whether it was to split us up, push us into a trap, or overwhelm us with a fast blitz, they each exposed a vulnerability (being pioneered, having the trap turned on them, or a stiff defense and weakness to counterattacks). There was also something strange with respect to blocking certain angles or just sight in general, but I couldn't figure out how to implement it.

As usual my power's insight proved underwhelming. The first time me and Rebecca fought a highly offensive fighter. When I saw she wanted to rush and overwhelm us while using a light defense, we tried to back up to keep a wall behind us. We didn't realize what her power was until she'd pushed us back and apart with heavy blows and kicks that undermined our footing. She failed to get through our defenses but her power prevented us from taking even a single step forward. Then she picked us apart separately.

The next match we pulled off our strategy and my partner even mixed in feints (and not so fake openings), while I tried to time the perfect counter. But somehow she was changing what we said to each other. I heard my partner shouting "wait, wait" while she was actually screeching "NOW, NOW."

In any case it wasn't the right time anyway. She was faster than me, after all. To land a blow I needed not just a distraction, I learned, but to also come in from the side in a headshot of her vision.

I went down shortly after she took out Rebecca. A sideswipe to my forearm that disarmed me with enough force it crushed my bones. Even with blunted practice blades, injuries were common and encouraged. It did give us plenty of practice on channeling youki to accelerate our healing.

That night Selene visited me.

"Clare, I've heard what they're saying. You can talk to me if you're having a problem."

"Huh?"

"They're saying you speak to almost no one outside of practices. And that when you do it's usually criticisms. You have one of those powers that make you a genius, right? I do too. But people tend to think we're stuck-up unless we're careful. You're feeding the stereotype."

I...didn't know that.

"I don't mean to." I manage.

"It doesn't matter what you intend. They'll still gossip about it and it smears all of us. It's not even like we're all geniuses like you. Most of us are just really, really good at a narrow topic."

I committed to being less critical of people around me. It meant giving out less advice, but now that I thought about it even, Nelly, the sturdy girl with the short bowl-shaped cut I practiced most frequently with, didn't follow my advice.

It wasn't just my weak powers telling me what people were doing wrong. It was also Teresa's experience, and the styles she built based on copies of over two dozens claymore's memories and experience.

If they didn't want it. They wouldn't have it.

Omake: Suffering of a Senpai

"How was it Odette?"

"Awful. I would have lost if Reina hadn't copied their conversation and played back their words for me. Even messing up their communication almost didn't work." I said as I cleaned a smudge I'd missed earlier from my sword.

"At least, you have Reina working with you. Until they figure out her trick she's one of the best partners you could have. Just wait until they start switching things up again."

"Don't remind me."

I hate all the curriculum revisions they've been pulling on us. The day these joint exercises started Odette had been expecting to fight and me to sit on the sidelines since I had no special abilities. Then they said everyone with powers who could use them at a distance would be hiding and supporting warriors like me who would be facing the tag teams.

Oh I saw the genius behind it. Later we could switch the partners and throw all sorts of surprises into things, and we got more experience working alongside other warriors. Still, springing it on us like that meant it was either a last minute change, a test or those handlers are watching us from one of those windows jerking off at their brilliance. Maybe there's even a competition to mess with us as hard as possible.

"Do you think they can really do it?" Asked Dorothy twirling her hair and looking up at the sky.

"Hmm?" I looked up too. There was nothing up there. But that was Dorothy.

"Project Osiris. Do you think there's hope for us to gain powers?" I turned to look at her. There was hope there, and desperation. We didn't know what happened to those who failed. Presumably the lucky ones ended up as Instructors like Chloe.

"I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed. Who knows how many they'll butcher before they get it right." I said thinking of Frieda and Marie. I clenched my hand, but kept a calm face.

Dorothy looked down. We walked back towards the practice hall together.

"If I could have any power I'd want to fly. To fly up and see for miles around. If I became a warrior between missions I could fly around and just observe people discreetly. Maybe one day I'd find my parents again."

Would they even accept us back. After my father died my mother had sold me, but it hadn't been out greed or heartlessness. I still remember the new lines on her face and her exhortations to me to be brave. Hoping against common sense I'd have a better life than starving with her or being used on her back like she was going to be until she sickened from something.

"I don't think I'd want to see my mother. I don't think she'd be happy to see what became of me, and I don't think I'd like to see what became of her." I said.

When we got to the practice hall we ran through three sets and then five before I talked Dorothy into a spar. I may have gone a bit harder than I meant to. I was still worked up from the fight earlier.

That night I prayed. I prayed to the goddess Clare and Teresa to make it stop hurting. I prayed, just in case it helped, to the Rabonian God too. If he existed, to give my mother another husband and another daughter in that order.

Author's Note: Selene is actually softening the gossip. I think the actual words are something like "crippled, stuck-up braggart." It doesn't help that she's spent a month in isolation while her peers bonded in shared suffering as much as they were allowed to.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5: Clare

The number of warriors in the organization has traditionally been 47. For some reason that number has been falling recently. It is down now to 42. In another year they may field only 40 warriors.

The better a warrior is the lower their number. The numbers are more than just a rank. You can't duel a higher ranked warrior, win and expect to switch numbers. I suspect loyalty, value to future operations, and maybe even satisfying particularly troublesome egos sometimes goes into the ranking.

That generally holds for numbers 10 and up. Number 1-9 are called the "single-digits" and are chosen based on combat prowess both individually and in small squads. You can't just be the ninth best soldier if the 10th best is a better leader and has a more suitable style for tackling serious threats.

Their names are written down. Remembered by us and future generations. Their styles studied but never directly copied. We are encouraged to build on them and develop new ones.

The other thing that separates the single digits is that until special powers started awakening they'd almost always develop a unique style or technique. Even now, most of the single digits have one. They become experts at it, and even those who try to simply copy them often hit a wall.

I didn't understand what that wall was until I witnessed Teresa's final battle with "Glass-Eyed Rosemary." In their first fight Rosemary possessed no power. Teresa confirmed it by skimming off Rosemary's memories. Her technique let her simultaneously observe all possible trajectories of a blade, and react second but strike first.

When she traumatically awakened her new power she stopped training her technique. When activated her power gave her raw speed at the cost of generating a constant amount of additional heat. After about twelve or thirteen seconds a normal human would have to stop. But as a warrior bonded with a Yoma's blood and flesh, despite it slightly burning her, she could keep on going and the heat only added to her destructiveness.

Teresa was upset when she saw her attack. All she did was defend, at first. She took damage, especially since Rosemary was in her awakened form. Then Teresa demanded she start fighting for real.

Neither of us understood what she meant until she took a new stance. The opening stance to the glass-eyed style.

"Come" she said.

Rosemary came and fell.

That memory made me realize Teresa could never properly execute the glass-eyed technique. For all her strength, speed and instant precision sensing she lacked a certain quality that only Rosemary possessed.

A technique or fighting style must be individualized because-even if you have every memory of the motions and practice put in, even if you exceed all the requirements in every aspect, and fully understand the theory behind the technique-you will fail. You will get a cheap knock-off that cannot defy ones limits, or touch a realm beyond even warriors.

I saw Teresa close her silver-eyes and at the same time I saw the blow slice deep into Rosemary's corrupted form. I saw the handle move after the blade leapt and Rosemary staring at the place Teresa once stood. Still stood.

I felt Teresa's bone deep frustration and dissatisfaction.

The glass-eyed style was never completed. Just as hundreds of other styles of the previous 77 generations were never completed.

Just as Teresa of the Faint Smile's style was never completed.

After six months I stopped waking up earlier and staying up later to practice, run through forms, or attempt to sense youki from further away. It was still necessary and I tried to practice as much as my peers, but the rest of my time I spent in a fugue. They started calling me the daydreamer. Selene didn't visit me about it, though.

It was tough to recall memories that Teresa had picked up from others. It was like looking down at a puddle and staring at your reflection. Then meeting the eyes of your reflection and watching yourself in there. I got better at it in time, but as the memories but I felt as if I only remembered bits and pieces of what lay there.

Still, bits and pieces of the lives of dozens of expert warriors was nothing to scoff at. Teresa had lived a long time, copying memories of anyone notable. When she first became a single-digit, the number one at the time was named Hysteria the Elegant.

It was a fitting name-both parts. When she moved her four braids danced in the wind. No, she left the wind far behind and they danced in her own aura.

I sometimes came out of fugues feeling a trace of their arrogance or sorrow or cold-fury. I would have to remind myself who I was or even what I was. A trainee and far from the best amoung them.

I had no family to miss or parents to revile. I had been insulted but never feared by townspeople, and there was nothing I'd accomplished or could do yet to feel pride or shame over.

It was when I was delving deep. Deeper than I'd ever dared to go before that I had my first accident. It was when Hysteria, was standing upon Rockwell hill. The corpses of countless warriors draped around or below her. Two awakened ones retreating in the distance. Teresa reaching down to her fallen form to touch her. Her last memory and the most indelibly carved one.

I felt her calling out. "I don't want to die. I don't want to **die**!" It started as a prickling, cold tide of _desire_. To deny her/ _my_ death and all that came with it. To run from that memory and the shame of it all. Except I wanted to run deeper. Deeper into _my_ past to better times and days when I was unparalleled and unbeaten.

Before I could take the first step a hand grabbed me. The arm was the thick tree trunk like limb of Alexandria, but her face caused the name Ysildre to spring to mind.

"Stop. Breath." Her voice echoed with two other voices. I could almost half remember one of them. I hated that person. Whoever she was.

"Remember who you, Clare."

Clare. That's not my name. But it's the name I was given. By someone important.

Then it was like I'd been dumped in a mountain lake. I could breath. I could remember Teresa calling me a fool and an idiot.

"Go back."

She pushed me and I struggled to surface. To leave the mirror and to leave the pool and to leave myself.

Then I was lying down. Dawn still an hour off. We'd been needing less sleep lately and I realized everyone else had already awoken and left.

After that I did not enter any memories except Teresa's. Even that I rationed as I threw myself into more training, such as parrying glancing blows with the new vambraces we'd been commissioned.

It took a long while before I took any further dives into memories Teresa had collected and I did not re-enter Hysteria's.

Still, the months of searching had taught me something. The myriad of ways to discover your specialty as a warrior. Dozens of ways unique ways to train yourself in what you do best. Perhaps most importantly, the thing they all had in common.

Every warrior I had seen had faced their death. Had challenged their limits. Had been pushed past what they could bear and had gotten a glimpse at who they really were. Sometimes they were saved by a comrade, or sometimes that insight let them overcome their foe.

I realized upper ranks were more likely to discover Their specialty because they entered into dangerous fights with awakened beings alongside three other teammates, who could step in if they were about to die. The best tended to receive insight early in their career or not at all. After all, if they were already powerful single digits and were being overwhelmed then what was the chances one of their teammates could successfully step and save their life.

Teresa had been in that "not at all" category and it had frustrated her. She'd only grasped her problem after she'd become too skilled to safely enter such a circumstance.

Instead, she had taken the long hard road of training herself in every way imaginable until one day she felt something align within her.

Perhaps, if she'd had such an experience she could have completed her style. Perhaps she would still be alive.

Regardless, my weakness was a strength for once. I looked down at my stub and recalled the memory of how I'd received it. I would relive it a hundred or a thousand times if that's what it took. I would follow the path Teresa had always wanted to walk.

AN: Clare in the manga learned or developed her own version of a number of techniques from other single digits. But as Irene/Ilena (depending upon the translation) said she wasn't perfectly suited for hers, and wouldn't be able to master it (of course, she also innovated an improved version of it). In the end, they weren't the deciding factor in her final battle. She fell back on the one thing she'd pioneered since the battle in the Pieta. Of course, the Clare in my fic is different enough (not to mention a proper hybrid to begin with) that she might have something completely different.

Thus, in my interpretation of the Claymore universe, and again this is an AU so I won't always follow canon, you can learn other people's specialties, but you'll need more work, speed, strength, etc to be as good with it as they were. You also eventually reach a cap on proficiency that they wouldn't have had.


	7. Chapter 7

Interlude: Region Director Fel

"Have you finished your updates to the catalogue of powers?" Mentioned Radomel as he entered my office.

"Yes, Orsay just came to pick up a copy to look over. By the way, have you heard the rumors coming out of Dae's research pen. I think somebody owes me several drinks given the evidence confirming my theory about the genetic potential of people with powers being unlocked."

"Are you talking about the three children of power holders who have manifested powers of their own?"

"Yes. Moreover, they have similar powers to their parents or grandparent in one case. If Miranda's theory about it being caused by some contagious factor were correct that still wouldn't explain the intrafamily power similarities."

"It could simply be genetics guiding the expression and a contagious factor bringing it out."

"Ahh, waffling already to a composite theory. Yes, that's also a possibility, but it still justifies the Farm." I rubbed in. I knew he had doubts about the Farm, but he needed to bow to necessity. There were worse things.

"Anyway, we're getting off topic. I came here to invite to tell you the council is meeting in an hour." Said Radomel.

"Usual location?"

"Yes. I expect they'll want you to justify your suggested amendments to the power ranking and classification system. Its displeased some of the department heads that you want to revise it again instead of finishing it already and classifying the rest as exceptions or a subclass."

"The Innovators are not a subclass of Knowledge Bearers. I always told Chief Rimuto that it was a mistake to lump them together with the Knowledge Types."

"Fine. Just know this is somewhere between second and third priority for them and they're liable to just use your last draft going forward if you can't justify yourself properly."

I entered the council chambers to hear them arguing.

"It was a mistake to plant that male Awakened one next to Saint Lucien." Said Orsay

"It was necessary to maintain our monopoly. The rest of their saints hardly matter since they can't find the Yoma, but Lucien had cleared out the sector." Argued back Gotho.

"Aren't you forgetting Father Damien and Sister Naomi? They're still out there so we still don't have a monopoly, and this just made them double their security and go into hiding."

"They can't be everywhere and hiding has forced them to take fewer jobs." Retorted Gotho who was beginning to look irritated.

"Still, this has only reconfirmed suspicions that have been brewing that we're behind Yoma and Voracious Eaters. As long as our reputation among the populace remains poor and a possible alternative exists some villages will wait until it's too late and face partial or total decimation rather than call upon our services promptly as they did before." As Orsay finished they both lapses into silence.

Left unsaid was another option. The Cleansing Hand was a criminal organization that sought to cleanse the land of the Yoma plague. That's right. They saw it as a plague. Thus, they did not bother with trying to determine the culprit. They divided the families in a village in half and secluded each half. Whichever half continued to have people go missing was executed down to the last child and pet. Even livestock were burned.

It was the incompetence of the uneducated peasant masses on display as usual. Of course, they couldn't come up with a better strategy than half-hearted mercy and half-hearted ruthlessness.

"There's a simple solution. We just need to prop up the other theory floating around. That it's the Northern Army at fault. Increase our support for the crusader faction and they'll take care of themselves." I proposed.

"That's precisely our problem, Fel. We don't have the resources to send further support. Only your district has kept its numbers up. We've been hit by with the dual issues of falling outside support and reduced revenue from our local operations, especially from Mucha. Adding more time between new generations of warriors, is finally has us down to only being able to replenish five sixths of our usual standing forces."

"Not truly an issue. Fewer missions means fewer warriors are needed. Plus fewer warriors mean fewer future awakened beings. Our trainees are covering the rest of the leftover missions." Or at least they were on paper. In the real world, it was a bit more complicated then that.

"Yes, but that's balanced by us having to take fewer awakened being hunts. We've also recently lost track of all of our recruitment agents in the South after the fighting with Elda and the Cleansing Hand ended up creating the briar wall. Until we can afford to send Priscilla over it we have no idea what is going on in a almost a fifth of the land."

"Resources wouldn't fix that problem." Added Orsay. He politely didn't mention Orsay's possible bias.

Rimuto cleared his throat and we all fell silent. "Now that Fel's here let's cease talking of these old issues and concentrate on new ones. But first, where's Dae?"

"Unfortunately, he's begged off attending yet again. He says his current work on the Osiris Project cannot be halted." Said a man with black short rimmed hat. I hadn't seen him before, which probably meant he was not a department head or regional director.

There was some soft mutterings at Dae's behavior before Rimuto chose to move on.

"Very well, Abel. I assume he sent you as his replacement then. The first item of business therefore will be his requested increased to the size of the farm. What results has he attained to justify that?"

I winced. The farm had its critics even in this room, but the payoff more than justified such a long-term investment. Sometimes I feel like my peers have lived too long in this new land. That they're starting to forget what's at stake. Powers didn't solve a single damn problem. It just doubled stakes we're playing for.

"As you no doubt have heard he has managed to induce awakening of powers in three children of powered subjects. All had highly prized powers for the war effort, and no usage of the parasites was necessary for any stage of the process. They are clean for export if we wish, although Dae is requesting at least one remain for the next generation of the farm."

"Does he think we can leverage that for more outside funding? It is cheaper and easier to just scale up our kidnappings to get 3 more useful power users."

"I disagree." Countered Abel. "If you scale up operations they have an increased visibility and they will make all further operations harder in the long run. As it is our informant network is finding it harder and harder to locate fresh power users or 'God-touched.' Many of the kidnapped also are already brainwashed by the church into believing they are actually God-touched and their desire to become saints or crusaders is only going to make it harder to safely transport and use them."

"One last point," he said with a wide grin. "One of the three children from the farm is registering as a level 7.8 farmer. His power has to do with the growth and manipulation of plants. He would be exceedingly hard to safely transport if he'd been kidnapped, but he's been properly trained from birth and will be easy to control."

...this was more impressive than I'd expected. 7.8 was high. Given the usefulness of his ability the promise of more offspring with similar abilities may very well help us compete with the new mainland research institutes.

"I hope he realizes if he gets the money he certainly won't be able to keep the boy."

"An acceptable loss given what he's focusing on. Let the Caiman college focus on finding matches that will give us disposable powered armies. Dae has focused his research on breeding and controlling the expression of powers."

I lifted an eyebrow at that. Six months ago we'd been twisting his arm to not use the twins for his project Osiris focused on giving powers. Was he already pivoting his research agenda?

"If so, it will be a lot easier to sell the mainland on this being the first of more eugenically grown power users. But please Miranda up to give us a report as well. She always offers a fresh perspective." Added Rimuto.

Abel bowed and left. Giving no sign he took it as an implied slight at his boss. If his boss even noticed it would probably only be irritation at losing his "best assistant in decades."

"Very well. Fel, you had a new idea for mobilizing innovators, and are pushing for a modification to make them a separate class again rather than a subclass of knowledge bearers. Explain." Said Rimuto smoothly transitioning.

"Of course, chief. The inspiration for this was seeing Holly scavenge and improve the designs of Elda's salvaged armor."

"You're talking about that chain mail armor she built out of bones and teeth of other awakened, right?" Noted Radomel.

"Yes, it functioned properly as armor but the durability of its joints left something to be desired. Still, the weight is several times lighter than we ever expected. Holly took some of the broken fragments and reforged them into a smaller version. Then filled the hollowed out portions filled with many supporting structures with a liquid gel courtesy of Miranda's latest thermal cell wall designs. Finally, to address the added weight redesigned part of the exterior to be 'more aerodynamic.' What she got was an armor resistant to archer fire, heavier but also with no speed loss when moving in straight or curved lines. There is a substantial reduction in agility and nimbleness, which may be alleviated with practice."

"Still, it doesn't pay to invest in armor when most blows from an awakened one are lethal. Agility is more important."

"True, but not so much if we have to handle enemy power user's long range attacks. Anyway, I just wanted to use that as an example of what Innovators can do when working together. They can build off each other's designs." I said. I looked around the room. There was interest but still skepticism. I hoped someone else would bring it up, but I would if it was necessary.

"Knowledge Bearers, which they're currently a subclass of also possess that attribute." Gotho brought up.

"True, but knowledge bearers also don't possess a disadvantage that Innovators frequently must struggle with. They can't scale up because their work requires frequent maintenance that non-Innovators can rarely keep up with."

"This may make them more useful, but it's hardly worth the cost of keeping up with their requests and needs for supplies, especially exotic materials like the bones of awakened beings." I saw Rado, who was standing behind Radomel, give a small shiver. Holly's idea would never take off even without the issue of maintenance once one considered what one would have to ask the warriors to wear.

"The Scholars Guild." Said Rimuto.

"Yes, chief. While our own Innovators are unlikely to build anything to change the balance of power we must be careful not to ignore the largest known group of power users, outside of the Saints. The Scholars Guild headquartered in Rabona has been flooded with innovators we've passed up taking, who have also been lured by the lucrative pay. We should not just assume they are an economic power if their two dozen or so Innovators can act as multipliers to each others effectiveness."

"Plus they're aligned against any crusades." Mentioned Radomel. "We won't be able to sap their strength through that."

We moved on from there to discussing the specifics of my proposed class. No revisions to the training program were proposed or passed since this was more about a hypothetical threat. I handed out copies of my report, but no one flipped past the abstract. How irksome.

Type

Description

Usefulness (base power rating modifier)

Types of Special Interest

Knowledge Bearer

Possess unnatural skills, persuasiveness or knowledge.

(-1, +3 if they can understand artificial or modified life forms)

Seers, knowledge modifiers, tacticians, researchers

Innovators

Capability to Build or enhance existing non-biological or chemical technology

(-2 in general, +1 if it relates to flight technology)

Flying innovators, or to a much lesser extent heavy supply transport innovators.

Brawlers

Enhanced close combat capabilities.

(+1)

Heavy attackers, or very mobile Brawlers who can carry others.

Archers

Enhanced ranged combat capability

(+2)

snipers with more than half a league range. Archers who can work under camouflage

Commanders

Enhanced leadership, creation of servants or puppets, or the ability to manipulate enemies.

(+1 in general, +3 for controllable manipulators, -3 for uncontrollable manipulators)

Unsubtle manipulators with obvious limitations, or commanders with minions or puppets that may be upgraded by innovators or farmers.

Collectors

Ability to increase their power by gathering, stealing, gifting or redistributing items, powers or energy.

(+1, +4 if their power can scale exponentially)

Those who can act nexuses for the powers of a group, or who can add to the powers of existing power users.

Farmers

Ability to manipulate or modify life forms. Also powers that can duplicate or affect the growth of life forms.

(+3, +5 if they can work with Ansarakem bodies)

power modifiers or multipliers. Surgeons or

"And you have no plans to changes our ten point rating system?"

"Yes," I said answering Rimuto's question. He would have known had he read the report. He was clearly more interested in the budget and Dae's project. As fascinating as Dae's work always is sometimes I wish something would eat him. Of course, if something did eat him it would probably be something karmic that would eat all of us.

"Very well. I see nothing to object about it. Any other comments?"

"If we're open to changes I still say we should separate the manipulators from the other commanders. They're potentially more useful, but also a lot more dangerous for our allies." Mentioned Gotho.

"There's more to warning people than giving them a scary title. It's complicated enough and effective countermeasures must be so heavily individualized that it's an issue best tackled with better training or more top down oversight." I countered. I caught Orsay nodding along. I wondered sometimes what he was up to. He agreed a little too readily with some of my ideas. Was always eager to pick up my reports early. He was either my biggest fan or buttering me up for something.

"But it's staining the reputation of the other commanders we try to send. It even makes them harder to ship." Brought up Gotho.

"Their loss is our gain." Said Rimuto with bitter finality.

The 'Commander' title had been picked once when we hoped to make their powers seem more useful to the Central office. It hadn't been effective, and we continued to be marginalized. It must hurt even worse for the chief.

"Alright, then there's one last item on the agenda. Priscilla is still in her prime as number 1, but we must look ahead." Rimuto said with more enthusiasm than he had shown throughout the rest of the meeting. "What sort of graduation test should we use to test the loyalty of Alicia and Beth?"

Author's Note: Sometimes it can be hard to follow all the new characters and factions so I've added a character list, by the way that's also bookmarked.

If you'd like to think about the classification system in worm terms, the Organization has lumped many trumps and Strangers together under collectors. Masters are generally commanders, but some thinkers whose ability carries into leadership would also be considered commanders.

Breakers and movers are split up based upon what range they can fight at. Brawlers generally include brutes and strikers, but may also include support personnel such as teleporters or fliers who help Brawlers get into close combat range. Archers includes blasters and shakers anyone else who fights from a distance.

Much like Commanders they are considered more valuable because more of them can attack at the same time and they tend to survive longer to be re-used. They also may be capable of taking out weaker Dragon-kin before they awaken.

Some masters actually fit might be classified as knowledge bearers if their skills are considered more suited for negotiation and persuasion off the battlefield.

Biotinkers, some trumps and masters with self-replicating minions will fit in the final category of farmers. Despite their name they are the most prized for their perceived long-term potential.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 6: Where There's Smoke There's Fire

It's been two trying years. As time has gone on the training has morphed further and further from the standard when Teresa went through it.

I feel as if it's being rushed now. We have begun taking missions outside in groups of four. If three or two or one come back we'll be reorganized and sent out next time in a new group of four. The generation ahead of us is already going out in pairs. The one before that has been sorted with half having already been slotted into the ranks to replace fallen warriors. There were few enough survivors that they did not even choose to hold a final exam.

We never go far outside the Western lands. I suspect that since the roster of active warriors has shrunk to 40 the district's have been reorganized and advanced trainees now handle some of the missions that warriors 41-47 would have done.

Today we headed to the village of Crannog.

"I wonder if they'll have decent booze." Said Elise, who was carrying two pigmy boars in a sack over her shoulders. We weren't paid by the Organization, but we could often barter meat or heavy physical labor for some simple luxuries when we went out.

"Probably not, you know they raise mostly maize around here. The best booze comes from the West or South's fields." Mentioned Evelyn. She was the smallest of us, but her speed was almost as fast as Jacklyn's and she had the best senses.

"Bah, it doesn't matter what you make it out of. Even if they don't have imports it's all about the heart that goes into it." Retorted Elise with a chest thump.

Me and Jacklyn stayed out of it. Jacklyn had been out of sorts ever since she heard the south was temporarily cutoff. I figured she must have come from there, but didn't know how to ask.

Personally I didn't think booze was worth the cost and effort. My own guilty pleasures are persimmons and a pendant of Teresa and Clare I wanted. Unfortunately, I could only stop by to look at it occasionally when business brought us through Toriro. I'd saved up for it but it still wasn't quite enough. The organization probably won't want me wearing it in public too. Will the shopkeeper even accept me as a customer.

It's depressing when I add it all up, but wearing the same thing as everyone else. Fighting in the same manner. The only differentiating factor being our hairstyles...it drives me crazy. It didn't help that my nickname was still "The Daydreamer."

When we got to Crannog the village surprisingly had a wooden stockade fence. Not tall, and no obstacle to leap over, but it would probably be rude to just ignore it and leap over it. We hailed the gate, but no one answered.

"Think they're not at home?" Wondered Evelyn.

"It's a whole village. Someone has to be inside. Maybe the gatekeeper took a potty break." Added Elise with a giggle.

"I think we should wait another half hour. If they don't let us in at that point we can reassess." Said Jacklyn seriously.

We agreed and settled down. Jacklyn was the strongest of us, after all, and we all expected her to jump straight into the twenties if she survived another year. It was natural for her to be our leader.

After a half hour we were all frustrated.

"Over the wall?"

"Yup." Said Jacklyn as started her jump.

I took a running jump and managed to make it up, but Evelyn just missed the top and failed to grasp a handhold.

"Need some help, shrimp?" Teased Elise.

"Shut up." Responded Evelyn as she threw her sword up first and then made her leap.

Inside the town was quiet.

"Creepy ghost town, eh?"

"Hmm."

There was one strong Yoma, which Evelyn confirmed. It felt.. murky somehow, but we knew it was near the center of town.

We didn't go immediately there, but instead hunted for the town leader. We saw several elderly and one woman but they all turned around the second they saw us. We did not chase them. We found the village head, despite no one offering directions, in the nicest house in the village.

"We've been sent by the Organization following your request for a yoma extermination."

"Yes, thank you, for coming." He said with irritation. "The payment is ready."

"Then give it to a man wearing all black who will come by this evening." Said Jacklyn.

"Where is everyone else?" I couldn't resist asking. I had half expected to find all the children and young parents in the village sheltering together in his house.

"Many have packed up and left. The new city Saintshold was luring away every second son and small landholder even before this mess." He said stiffly.

"Upset they're abandoning you?" Said Elise with a cruel smile.

He scowled. "Don't be ridiculous. I sent my own son and grandchildren off yesterday. A better life for them, I hope. It's your fees that's the problem. Even discounted, with fewer heads to spread the costs among you're sucking this town dry."

I was...less than sympathetic. They should be glad they're not going to be eaten after today. How can gold compare to the value of ones life?

"We'll take our leave then."

After that hunting for the Yoma was almost anti-climactic. I'd probably have spent the day wandering around in a shrinking spiraling pattern until he was in close enough range that I could nail down his location.

Evelyn took us slowly but surely straight to his house after a few course corrections.

"There's still something wrong. Maybe it's a voracious eater." She said from 3 houses back.

"I don't feel anything. But if it's a voracious one then bring it on. There's four of us." Said Elise.

I rather doubt it would go that smoothly. But the thought of facing an awakened being sent a frission of energy down my back. If it came down to it I was a lot stronger than I showed. I wasn't a match for Jacklyn yet, but I had taken to holding back my best moves in spars. I didn't want to be placed on a weaker team or pushed to graduate sooner.

"I'm up for challenging it." I said simply.

"You're both crazy." Said Jacklyn with a frown. "We're no match for a true Awakened Being." She seemed to realize what she'd said a moment too late and slapped a hand across her mouth.

Evelyn and I glanced around for onlookers but there were none. I relaxed.

"I mean a 'voracious eater' would take us apart without a single digit. This is a team to fight Yomas not fight a 'voracious eater.'"

We discussed our options some more. We couldn't just call off the job, and this was hardly enough to make a request for reinforcements. None of us wanted to go back into solitary cells when we returned, and they probably wouldn't even send help if we asked and delayed. After all, if we died that was only to be expected of trainees. We were disposable.

I froze. "It's stirring." Whispered Evelyn.

"Let's go ladies. The Yoma has made the choice for us. We can't afford to let it escape." Said Jacklyn.

"Maybe it actually will turn out to just be older and bulkier than usual." Said a jovial Elise as she practically skipped down the road to fight a man-eating monster.

The townhouse was three stories tall. It looked no richer or poorer than the ones around it, but only the buildings near the center of the village were built three stories tall.

"Evelyn, take point. Elise guard our rear. Clare you're with me."

Elise looked disappointed, but it was the right call. Evelyn was not only the smallest target but one of the fastest, not to mention she'd probably detect anything hiding first.

We came in hard. Evelyn knocked down a door. Elise almost following the plan except going through a window a step after. We found him in the living room, in a closet under the stairs. His fingers shot out of it already sharpened into razor-like claws. They were dodged by Evelyn. A second set headed towards me, which I side-stepped before heading in to flank the closet from the left side. I was a step behind Jacklyn, though, who leapt up and barely avoided clipping the ceiling by curling her spine. Then she stabbed down through the stairs. Her Yoki sense accurately guided her blow that drew dark blackish blood.

"Smack."

I turned around to see Elise thrown against a wall. Her sword arm missing from the elbow.

Evelyn reacted first and threw her blade at the attacker. A second later and he would have finished the disarmed warrior.

The second Yoma jumped back.

"Help them Clare." Screamed Jacklyn. Her sword seemed stuck and it didn't feel like the first Yoma was completely dead, but I trusted her.

If the Yoma had been smarter it would have ran. It would have ran before we even arrived at the town. As soon as word went around about hiring "Claymores" some Yoma will flee. If the town is already clean and the Yoma does not come back the Organization will receive half pay on the job.

This Yoma chose to run after ambushing us.

Me and Evelyn caught up to it before it had managed to make it more than one house away. I went low and she went high. It turned around at the last minute. Maybe it sensed us. Its final attack on me was intercepted with a blow to the head converted to a slash that bisected his arm.

It could do nothing to stop Evelyn. She bisected him horizontally at the waist as she ran past him, and then stopped herself and thrust her sword behind her. It impaled his head through the back of his deformed cranium.

The monster did not even manage any last words.

When we got back Elise was using 30% of her youki and had begun attaching her severed limb. Reconnecting the tissues would probably take a couple more minutes.

Jacklyn had hacked the Yoma into pieces along with the stairs and closet.

"How did it go for you?" Asked Evelyn.

"Not hard. As soon as it got injured, I felt it swell with fear. I magnified that and squelched its hope as well as anger at being injured. It didn't put up much of a fight after that." She said. Once the opponent was within her range a 1vs1 with Jacklyn was a usually a curbstomp.

"Me and Clare ran down the other one in streets and I got it across the waist and slammed it home until I could see daylight through his skull." Pronounced Evelyn cheerfully.

I wish she wouldn't marginalize my own contribution, but it's not worth making a fuss.

"Alright. Then let's report back to the village head after Elise finishes. He can bury the bodies or leave it for our handler."

We found out when we reported back to the head and told him what the townhouse looked like that the place we'd fought him had a pair of men, twins, who hadn't left town. Even their severed heads looked similar.

It might have explained the issue we had sensing them. We'd picked up one strong Youki aura instead of two very similar ones. Elise recovered her cheer quickly until she found out the town's bars were closed. One owner had left for Saintshold. The other was dead.

Still, when he saw how disappointed Elise was he nervously offered us a bit of his own stock in exchange for her catch she'd hunted.

His condition, though, was she drink it outside of town.

Our business was over and the remaining villagers were still avoiding us, so we made a quick exit.

"Ahh, this hits the spot." Declared a buzzed Elise.

"You inhaled that like it was water. Did you even taste it?" Pondered Evelyn as she held Elise's empty flask upside down.

"A connoisseur can taste things regardless of how fast or slow she goes. Besides, a warrior's youki sense isn't the only sense enhanced by the process. From what I've heard bedtime games among us can also blow your mind."

"Eww, get your mind out of the gutter, you drunkard."

Ten minutes later she proved the merit of her words. A breeze blew by carrying a hint of ash.

"Did you guys smell that too?" Asked Elise. Evelyn didn't but me and Jacklyn agreed.

All it took was for us to look up and glance behind us. A thin crooked line of smoke was making its way upward from the direction we had come from.

«***»

Author's Note: All the Warriors in this chapter are around 12-14, so Elise is drinking way underage. Or rather she'd be underage if there were minimum age drinking laws.

Also, the biggest challenge for trainee teams is not actually the combat. Four trainees can definitely take on Yoma if they can find them. The issue is that their yoma sensing is still weak, and that doesn't stack like combat power just because you have four of them.

Other teams that don't have as good of a sensor as Evelyn will end up pairing off and probably looking for Yoma in pairs, so don't think of Evelyn's performance this chapter as underwhelming. The organization tries to assemble balanced trainee teams with one good sensor and balanced combat capability, but the team's grow less balanced over time as they take casualties and reform with survivors.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 7: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

"Damn it."

"Morel might be in the middle of that. Do you really want to appear partially drunk if we have to pulls his butt out of that." Said Jacklyn as we continued running.

She'd ordered Elise to step up her regeneration to clear the alcohol from her system.

It was an hour before sunset. Morel didn't have a set schedule for when he did pick-ups but it was entirely possible he was in the middle of that.

"What about the townspeople?" Asked Evelyn tentatively.

"What about those ungrateful jerks." Said Elise.

I felt my mouth tighten at that prospect. The townspeople hadn't been particularly bad here, but the fire brought up and memories. Not all of them from my days as a part human yoma-hunter.

There had been fire that day. When Teresa returned and saved me from the Tainted Militia. It was a bandit group run by power users who unabashedly played up the belief that special powers were a curse rather than a blessing. People had been all too willing to believe anything supernatural must be related to the Yoma, and that fear helped them until they ran into Teresa.

"If we get involved people may think the Organization was involved. They may even blame us for any deaths. That would be a death sentence." I said. The rule after all was more about perception than truth. For example, a warrior who the bodies well may never be held accountable. But one who was publicly accused of it might be treated as guilty without even being able to speak out in her defense.

We fell silent.

"Agreed. We get in there and pull out Morel. If the fire is contained enough that there won't be casualties then we can consider pitching in." She said with a glare at Elise who looked like she wanted to interrupt. "But otherwise we stay out. We aren't designed to fight fires anyway. We're made to fight monsters." Said Jacklyn with an air of finality.

The air stank as we drew closer. The lines of smoke thickening and darkening into curling fingers in the sky that beckoned us closer. It did not look like the fire was contained.

It was worse than we imagined. We took to jumping rooftops while I did my best to predict where groups of the Cleansing Hand were. With my power I threaded us through the weak points in their encirclement of the town, but we inevitably were spotted. They attacked us with archers wielding some new type of bow they loaded with their feet. It forced us to abandon the rooftops for better cover.

"Damn, Morel for letting himself get captured. I wonder if they give the handlers Prisoner and Interrogation Training like they gave us." Said Elise.

"Probably not." Muttered Evelyn.

We'd broken a window and were hiding inside a house. The fires hadn't spread here, but we needed a plan.

"When I was up on the roofs I saw the city square which was filled with a dozen members of the Cleansing Hand." I said. "Moreover, it felt like the only way we were likely to get in there safely was by stealth, disguise or if we're captured."

"Those choices. Boy, we're in for it. They must have at least one power-user over there, and since we're constrained from killing humans we might not be able to get to Morel. Is it really our fault if he gets hanged here?"

No one responded to Elise. I was beginning to wish we'd never turned around. If we hadn't maybe we could have pretended to have missed the whole thing.

"Number 13." Said Jacklyn. "We can't run."

Number 13 held a useful Knowledge-type power, so she was generally consulted for investigations when someone important dies. Somehow she'd figure out everything that happened.

"Alright, the first thing we need is a distraction. If the men in the square can get reinforcements this goes from nasty to suicidal." Said Jacklyn. "I'll head to the village head's house or track him down if he's not there. Try to 'rescue' him and kick up enough of a fuss that they all start heading to me. I can outrun them, but stay just near enough they keep chasing."

Something about her words was problematic. I concentrated harder but couldn't get it. Then I noticed her hand tremble.

"You're not going to hold back if you get cornered." I saw it then. If I wanted to dispose of this rival all I would have to do is put her against a serious obstacle in this next fight. A power user or an encouragement of archers. She was already itchifor battle and a part of her didn't care if it would mean she'd become an enemy of the Organization.

"This is fucked up. If they're going to kill you over what you have to do then we should just abandon Morel. The men can choke to death on their fuckin' rules. I'll take my six months of isolation. Thank you very much." Said Elise sarcastically.

Evelyn twitched nervously. I heard calling outside. It was closer.

"We won't just get an isolation cell or reduced rations. They'll probably switch to sending us out in pairs right away for missions. They may also increase our mission load." Said Jacklyn.

A delayed death sentence. Technically, our profession was a delayed death sentence, but in pairs the casualty rate would be much higher. Could any pair of us have done the mission we did earlier today without casualties? The second one would have gotten the jump on us and probably killed whoever they ambushed. Even if Jacklyn killed the first one quickly enough for it to not become a 2v1 situation there would still be at least one casualty.

"I think we should stay closer together." I said. "It will make it easier to withdraw. All we need to do is make a good faith effort to free him, and if they push us back we can tell number 13 we tried." I said.

It was a balanced approach.

We planned a bit more and then left in two pairs. Jacklyn and me followed by Elise and Evelyn.

"You never speak much." Mentioned Jacklyn as we headed to the square where Morel was being held. We had the longer route since I was more likely to be able to safely guide us around problems.

"What's there to say. Besides, you're not too talkative either." I whispered. With our hearing we didn't need to hold the conversation above a whisper.

"I know. But you take it further. I just find myself wondering before we head in there what's behind your stoic mask."

From the alley I leapt up to a second story window. With a sharp shove I broke the window lock and got in just as Jacklyn followed on my heels. As we moved to the other side of the building I answered her question.

"You fight without fear because ever since your powers awoke you've never felt fear. Your eyes unconsciously drift south some days. As if you're missing something down there. When we camp at night you want to break out into song sometimes. If you weren't insecure about your voice you would. I can see all of these things. My power also tells me how to use them against you. How to dig the knife deep and twist it."

We were coming up on the square. A few more buildings and then we just had to flare our youki in the right pattern to signal we were ready. The other two would decide on when to begin since they would be attacking from the front.

"You don't do that though." Said Jacklyn distracting me. "Is it tough to resist?"

"No. If I got distracted or obssessed thinking about that my power would tell me that was a weakness in myself, and how an enemy could use it to take me down." I said. Honestly, right now my power was saying I may be giving away too much. I squelched it before thinking more about it. I hated when it was right.

I decided if she was going to dig up my secrets I should go after a few of hers. "Can I ask you, Jacklyn, something about your power?"

"Oh, sure. I guess that's fair."

"I've always wondered why your range is everything you can touch or touch with your sword. It's as if your power considers your sword part of your body. Is that right?"

"Yeah. It didn't use to be that way, but either practice or my thinking has changed enough for it to work like that."

"One more thing," I said as I gauged she was open to me pushing a little further. "Does your power's effect really wear off that quickly or do you let it wear off during spars?"

She paused longer. We finally found a position on a flat rooftop that shouldn't expose us. We were a little farther than I'd like, but I didn't feel like we could get closer without risking detection.

"I undo the effect." She said meeting my eyes. "Don't spread it around, though."

She flared her youki twice in a very rapid interval. Then we both suppressed ours as much as possible.

When Elise and Evelyn chose to make an entrance they really made an entrance. Despite using the flat of their blades the bodies of enemies were strewn left and right.

"Let's go." Said Jacklyn.

We attacked from behind as soon as they got everyone's attention. With full speed we rushed forward and got to Morel's side. We didn't even bother engaging the men around him. We just grabbed him and tried to run.

Unfortunately, one of those men turned out to be a so-called "God-touched." He raised his hand and fire from nearby leapt at us. The fire took the form of lizards, but their bodies were intangible flames.

Before they could get within a dozen meters of us Jacklyn tapped him with her blade. He went down and curled up into a ball. The flames also curled up into balls, and changed their target from us to him. As we retreated they began circling him.

Unfortunately, he was not the only "god-touched" there. Elise and Evelyn were attacked by reinforcements. This time they shot arrows with ropes attached to them. None struck home.

Evelyn later told me she saw a lump move along the shadow of one of the ropes. They avoided it, of course, but it settled in Elise's shadow.

Next thing they knew a blade had sprung from Elise's shadow and pierced deep into her gut. Evelyn tried to cut off the arm that held that blade, but it retracted into the shadow before she could reach it.

Me and Jacklyn had pulled back out of the immediate vicinity of the battle, but were keeping watch. When Jacklyn saw Elise sprout a sword from her belly she left Morel with me to rush towards Elise.

When he tried to transfer to Evelyn's shadow Elise stomped on him. It didn't do any damage but he was reabsorbed into her shadow.

I finally got a look at him and shouted to use the fires and to apply it to her shadow.

They heard me but so did the archers and other swordsman. I had to grab Morel and start running. With only one of us carrying Morel, though, I found I difficult to shake them off.

By the time Jacklyn and Evelyn caught up me and Morel had been nearly cornered twice. We retreated, and then tended to Morel and Evelyn's injuries.

Elise was not with them.

I was staring at the campfire. Evelyn's wounds had been light. Only a stray arrow that caught her from a blind spot. Morel was resting and had been badly tortured. As much as we hated the necessity of the Organization we also couldn't help sympathizing when we saw those wounds. They had both been put to bed already.

"What are you thinking about?" Jacklyn asked me. She should have been resting too. I had taken the early watch, but she would have to be up for the rest of the night. Neither of us wanted to let Evelyn take a shift, even though she was up for it.

"I was thinking about what would have happened if you'd been able to shove a torch into Elise's shadow?" I said, which was true enough.

"I don't think it would have made a difference. Elise was an offensive warrior, and he got her straight through her intestines and stomach. He may even have hit her kidneys or liver."

"It might have been a woman," I noted. I didn't disagree with her conclusion, though.

Sometimes I hated knowing as much about our bodies and anatomy as we did. It helped with regeneration and even with knowing where you can and can't take a hit. Still, I could see her spread out like a cadaver. The drone of a bored retrieval squad member pointing out every part inside her.

"If only we'd pushed for more scouting. I might have been able to pick up the power users and noted their weaknesses ahead of time."

"It wouldn't have mattered. Do you think those two were just paired up by chance? If we carried torches the flame manipulator would have made the flames come alive and attack us."

I realized she was right. My power was great at putting together weaknesses, but if I didn't see them together, I would have assumed the weaknesses of the individuals were the same as the weaknesses of the group.

I fell back. I let my back hit the ground and stared up at the stars. I was a shit night guard too.

"Hey Clare."

"Yes."

"If you ever want to talk, even about my weaknesses or faults feel free to do so." She said. I looked at her. She was dusting imaginary dirt off of her thighs, but when she seemed my eyes on her she met my eyes without hesitation.

"It would probably do me some good." She continued. "Especially if your analysis helps me improve in my leadership. You know, being strong doesn't just automatically make someone a better leader." She said teasingly.

"You're a good leader." I said, and I meant it. I turned back to the stars.

"Jacklyn, if you ever want to sing then I'd like to hear you. If you sound awful, though, I'll honestly tell you about all the ways you stink."

Nothing attacked us that night except a bit of awful singing near dawn.

When we got back to Staff they took our report and Morel away. A week later, Lily was assigned to our team and after half a week of training we were sent out again with a new handler, who stayed much closer to us.

Less than a month later he told us that the Organization had revised the code of rules for us hybrids. It was now acceptable to kill human enemies of the Organization as long as it was either in self-defense or in the defense of one of the members of the Organization.

«***»

AN: The original title for this chapter was "A Last Drink" but I decided it was too spoilery.

Shadow Sword user got away. He's not as fast as the warriors, and probably freaked out when Clare started talking about throwing around fire. Technically, fire wouldn't have burned him, but using it to stretch the shadow he's in would have pushed him out of his physics breaking form and exposed him to physical attack.

Omake: Abyss

"So the support has really stopped."

"Yes, you're on your own."

"Have they?"

"No, I think they're still deciding. One faction made up of the Innovator and Knowledge Bearers are pressing for them to reconcile on the condition of an end to the Farm and human testing."

"And the other faction?"

"Basically everyone except the Archers and some of the Brawlers. They want you all annihilated, but they don't want do it right now."

"..."

"What are you thinking, Rimuto?"

"A great many things. I suppose it doesn't matter. Regrets are a luxury. Tell me, can they save the Empire?"

"I don't know. They want to strike a peace agreement with the Dragon's-kin, you know. I think if they went all out they're pretty sure they could arrange an outcome with mutual destruction."

"Threats are worthless if you're too soft to follow through."

"I know. The Dragon's-kin also do not think as we do. If the rumors are true they're also in negotiations with a new foreign group."

"Are we necessary?"

"Hey, it's now you, not we. I've changed my colors and now proudly support the new Empire."

"Congratulations. Tell me when they figure out how black your heart is and serve it to you on a silver platter."

"Rimuto, it's not as bad as you may be thinking. You hold in your hands a weapon that could also assure mutual destruction. I don't know if you realize it, but perhaps it's time to stop thinking like a scientist and start thinking like a warden."

"You're talking about the Abyssal Ones."

"Yes, if even one awakens a decent power or partners with the right users they'll be practically unstoppable. If they can get to the mainland, they could easily attract a faction capable of rivaling everybody else. Stop thinking like you're still one breakthrough away from saving everyone."

"If you're right, the best thing I could do is break off contact entirely. Turn us into a true Organization, and pretend the rest of the world does not exist."

"Dae would probably accept that, but many of the other councilors won't."

"Yes, I'll have to finally choose which faction to back and deal with the other one."

"So, what message do you want me to deliver for you?"

"As much as I'd like the Innovator and Knowledge Bearer faction to win I suspect the Commanders and Farmers will hold more influence in the long run."

"The farmers is a very small group. I think you should actually be worried about the Commanders and Collectors."

"In any case, I want to dissuade them from wishing to deal with us for as long as possible."

"Then you're going to have to leak to them one of your secret projects. They'll be able to create counter-measures for it, but the threat that you have others you aren't showing should make them hesitate."

"Very well. Follow me. Rather than showing them one of Dae's projects I'd like you to report on Miranda's successful drug and manipulator combination treatments. We're applying it to an old failed project of ours that went by the name of Abyss."

Author's Note: For Non-Claymore readers

Abyssal Ones=Former #1 warriors who used too much youki and went past the roughly 80% limit. Thus, they awakened. There are three well-known examples (Riful, Isley and Luciela).


	10. Chapter 10

AN: If you're going to the this chapter because you saw the update, I'd just like to mention that I threw up three of the chapters from sufficient velocity up here at once. Thus, this might not be where you stopped reading from

Chapter 8: First Instinct and Reaction

Eva, Number 13, was a queer girl. When she talked with us I got the impression that she wasn't really talking with us. This only got stronger when she stopped talking to us to start talking to a wall. She eventually resumed interviewing us, but by then we knew that she found us silly, found the pay as a warrior extremely lackluster, and wished to go visit a tiny hole-in-the-wall food wagon in a village beside Crannog.

Aside from enraging Evelyn, though, it was a fairly harmless and innocuous round of interrogation. I would not even bother remembering the event except I managed to shake hands with her at the end. When I did this I used Teresa's power to copy my first set of memories from a ranked warrior.

She immediately detected it and began a not so subtle conversation about my invasion of privacy with the wall before concluding I had no idea how rude it was and probably would not make a good friend given how callous I am.

She also began referring to me from that point on as the "uncouth Mistress of Ceremonies."

Still, it was worth it for the copy of her memories. I have found, when using Teresa's power, that the balls of light are like condensed expressions of a memory. From there it was logical to experiment and see if I could replicate Teresa's feat of copying and condensing the memory of every notable warrior in her generation and several more before and after it.

When I'd practiced with my peers the copying part was not difficult once I got the hang of it. I imagined a clothesline and taking down the clothes, claiming its shadow, and then replacing them back onto the line.

It felt very natural, and Teresa had spent a long time studying every step of this before trying to move on to preserving and condensing memories. Leaving aside issues of speed and completeness came in time, the bigger problem was they never lasted longer than 6 hours.

The key was learning to condense and seal them into balls of bright memory like Teresa had. This wasn't something she actually learned until after she became a warrior, and I knew her original inspiration was two-fold-a scene of a blacksmith's furnace as he refined an iron ingot, and a beetle that rolled manure into dense spheres.

It confused me. I could see she'd studied both of these carefully before making her first breakthrough, but I couldn't see the importance of them.

Thus, after copying Eva's memories, I immediately retreated to an old storage room I'd found where I figured I'd be undisturbed for at least half the day. I needed to get all the use out of her memories that I could before they faded.

Fortunately, I'd found through my experiments with my peers that entering a memory I have copied first-hand is as easy as entering Teresa's memories. There's no reflection within a reflection like with the memories copied by Teresa.

The first thing I saw were two lines of unarmored warriors in an abandoned side-village. This was Eva's graduation test. She'd killed two other trainees that day before switching targets to taking out the Yoma that had secretly been introduced into the test.

Seeing her skills firsthand unsettled me a bit since they could only have gotten better, and she saw me as an unfriendly, uncouth power user.

In any case, things got even weirder when I saw the event that caused her to Awaken her power. That day she'd participated in an Awakened Being hunt as filler material for their team. She'd only been saved by the sacrifice of her friend. A friend who'd once beaten and abused her.

It was complicated.

I saw then what she'd been speaking to and I'm fairly sure even in the real-world, in that isolated closet, I yelped.

It was a giant ball of eyeballs. Not just a giant eyeball, but a giant conglomeration of eyeballs.

When it spoke it whispered the secrets of everything and everyone around her to Eva. It even communicated secrets it didn't seem to fully understand.

I directed her memories to the conversation we had just had. It would be easier to check their accuracy since I had first-hand memory of everything. It could tell Anna that Evelyn wanted to drink when she remembered the events of that day. It didn't seem to understand emotions or human traditions. It merely noted our desire to go and retrieve Elise's body, but could not connect it to the importance behind the act.

It was an interesting limitation. For the first time, I wondered about the source of our powers. With warriors there is a simple explanation. Yoma flesh and blood have made us both more and less than human.

These powers, though, of us so called "god-touched" make little sense at all. How can a person fly or another person generate a swamp? Even with youki involved I would find the whole thing mystifying. Perhaps there is a God at work.

If there is one and he looks like what Eva sees everyday I have to wonder what his intentions are. Does he eat humans just like Yoma and Awakened Beings? Perhaps he just consumes the power user. Maybe we're buying up our powers with our lifespans.

I suppose it doesn't matter. Warriors have infinite and terribly short lifespans. Warriors cease to age shortly after the hybridization process finishes. For some that is as quickly as six months after the procedure and for others it takes several years.

Regardless, longevity wasn't a limiting factor. Warriors tend to live no more than three years once they begin actively hunting, because the usage of youki stimulates it and eventually causes it to grow out of control.

We are ticking time bombs, and as long as my powers don't plan to stab me in the back in the next three or four years I should just take it and appreciate it. Besides unlike other warriors I couldn't even hold out a tiny bit of hope. Desertion and a quiet life never touching my youki couldn't offer me what I wanted.

I spent the rest of my time analyzing her toughest battles, her training regimen, and the styles and abilities she witnessed during her career.

I realized midway through that lately her workload has been drastically lightened. They're trying to preserve her. They don't want to waste her by sending her after an awakened being when a more disposable piece can be used instead.

It was also disappointing that the being Eva communicates with has only a superficial level of understanding of the styles and techniques she sees. It can interpret he form and function, but it misses the mindset and potential. When it sees a technique executed twice with different levels of strength it sees only improvement or regression. The pulse of the world around their youki is imperceptible even to her high-class knowledge power.

Eva's memories only captured things Eva sensed. Perhaps if she was able to feel the side effects her power would be able to tell her something useful.

I turned to see what memories Eva had of the current single digits. I knew their nicknames like "God-eye Galatea," "Heat-Haze Hilda," "Kujira of the Nothingness," and so on. But, the records on their current abilities and techniques was not accessible to trainees. She hadn't seen all of them. Especially the new ones or Priscilla. Still, this was a treasure trove I waiting to be looted.

 _Dozens of copies swarmed an awakened being. Each attack that appeared about to take it down instead speared a rock or a tree or the Being's own body. It was insane because even my own youki sense couldn't discern where she was. Every copy felt the same. A second later it was over. The being's two remaining tentacles hit duds and the warrior's blade sank into its neck. The two other warriors in the party leapt forward simultaneously to sink their blades into the falling head's eye sockets._

 _..._

 _"I have no reason to fight you. A duel won't change our rankings."_

 _"I don't care. You're strong. I need stronger opponents."_

 _I'm bored of this farce._

 _The single-digit pauses. "Fine. But we got to the first blow only. We must not let ourselves get injured for what amounts to a game."_

 _"This isn't a game to me."_

 _"I know. But is to our masters. By the way, you've already lost."_

 _Huh? On the cheek of her challenger a line of red appears. I turn back to the single-digit's blade. It is clean. But on one of her nails a curling swirl of...what looks like distorted space is vanishing._

 _..._

 _Nothing. She did nothing. She didn't attack or defend. She didn't run or talk. She did nothing. At last in frustration the awakened being leapt forward at her. I tried to attack the swinging tail to keep it out of the picture for the others. My blade sank home but it had retracted at the last second. I only cut off the tip and the rest of it uncoiled and sent me flying back._

 _The other two warriors faired similarly, but we halted its advance. Just a little more time. Jezebel lost an arm, which was then stepped on during the fighting. A stray spray of needles almost blinds me in both eyes. I preserve one of them._

 _Finally, she moves. She takes one step and the being begins to shrink. Each step it becomes smaller and smaller while her aura grows vaster and deeper. It tries to flee. A vain attempt. We are not so uselessly we can't slow it down and soon it is tripping over its own feet dodging us in a midway form between awakened and human-form._

 _She raises her arm and the youki coats her blade in a terrible darkness. Then it is over._

 _..._

 _There is nothing for me to do. I'm not even sure why I'm here. Is it really that important to have four warriors if two of them are doing all the work. Ave suggest the full team was formed in case multiple awakened beings are lying in wait for an ambush. It also whispers that she's grandstanding._

 _Ignorant of my thoughts, my leader continues to bombard the awakened being from half a kilometer away. Solid starlight smashes down from the sky. Most of it misses. She does not seem to be aiming for accuracy. Those that do only blast watermelon size holes into its form. These regenerate quickly. Clearly a defensive type given how long the battle has been going on._

 _It is a challenge of endurance. Will our leader's bombardment cease first, or the enemy's regeneration reach its limit. Her face is pale. The veins around her eyes throb wildly._

 _A cloud of mist appears around us. The awakened's youki disappears. It has done this once before. It reappears no more than five meters from us. Belle charges through the mist at it. She doesn't bother with her sword. Belle just uses a shoulder charge. The enemy almost dodges it, but is still knocked back five or ten more meters._

 _We all leap backwards. We need to regain our distance. Belle can take the rain. It starts again, but the bombardment is weaker this time. The mist also begins to disperse giving us our first glimpse at it nice it moved. It's laughing at us, but it comes out as more of a croak. It hasn't fully regenerated its throat._

 _It's holding Belle above its frog-like head. I am starting to get scared. Can Hailey keep this up?_

 _It charges at us. It must need more time before it can move like it did before. I try to catch Belle when she's thrown at our leader. Belle is delirious. Hailey's rain peter's out._

 _Number thirty jumps in the way, and has her blade thrown aside and her head smashed like a berry. One last burst falls from above. Thrice the size of all the previous ones._

 _Something must have warned it because at the last minute it raises its arms above its head. This saves the monster._

 _Hailey collapses. The limitless awakened does not move. It is too damaged. My sword? Where is my sword? I find my blade but by then it's stirring. Why didn't I think to just use Belle's?_

 _"We need to get out of here." I scream._

 _I throw Belle over one shoulder. Hailey has risen to her feet._

 _"Run Eva." Says Hailey. She sounds exhausted._

 _I take off, but Hailey doesn't follow. Behind me I can feel Hailey bringing her youki up to 70%, 75%, 79%. I don't ask. I don't want to know._

"That's why we should learn to be less reliant on our powers." I said to Jacklyn as I tried and almost dodged her blade.

She sent a jolt of laughter down it that distracted me long enough to bring it to my throat.

"It seems to be working just fine right now." She said with a smirk.

"I know," I said scowling, "but when we get out there fighting Awakened Beings we'll be fighting enemies with a lot longer range than our Claymores. Each of their blows could be fatal, and with such a long reach you can't rely on your ability even being a factor in the battle. That's not even counting the various archer class powers."

She nodded. "I know. This power is much more effective in duels where me and my opponent have similar ranges. Still, I don't think we really need to be planning for Awakened Hunts. I kind of just want us all to survive to graduation and I still feel I'm not nearly good enough with my power to stop exploring and working at it. Maybe if I keep working at it I can increase my range even further."

I'm...not as optimistic. Having seen a dozen warriors with powers in my memories, I know just how rare it was that she could even expand her range to her sword.

The issue with powers is that unlike youki it doesn't have the potential to grow stronger. Warriors get more skilled at using it overtime, but it was usually a dead end.

"You might be able to request a non-standard weapon to increase your range, but I don't think you're going to get much further. Developing a signature technique or style may not payoff in the short-run, but you're probably going to be pushed to graduate early. I can still improve a lot just focusing on the basics, but you need to start working on something special right now for Awakened hunts."

I thought again of #30. Of number #24, #19, and of #34. Of Anise, Georgiana, Irina and Zoe. Those were just the ones Eva saw with her own two eyes die. She had also never been involved in an Awakened Being hunt that was a complete disaster. Those had no survivors.

"You know what they're calling signature youki applications now, right? They're calling them minor powers or even fake powers."

"Only elitist power users are calling it that, which neither of us are." I retort. It's not entirely true, but I refuse to give in.

"You really feel strongly about this don't you. Alright fine." She said with a grin. "I said I'd take your advice about my weaknesses under advisement. I suppose it would be pretty silly disregarding it after only a week."

I can see a part of her wanted to switch to this anyway. We were after all raised on stories of the heroic and loyal warriors doing the implausible and improbable time and again with their Claymores.

She began a series of stretches. Back, abdomen, and then moving on to deltoids and trapezius.

"So how do you want to do this?" Asked Jacklyn.

Unfortunately, my problem was I had too many ideas and methods. Nothing had been standardized, but generally there's two parts. A unique youki manipulation you can do in your sleep, and...something else. I think it's like an image in your head, a pocket of megalomania, or an impenetrable will. Something you strictly adhere to and strive for.

"First, we need to figure out what your first instinct is. What you do when all the chips are down and you either win or die. Can you remember what you were thinking and feeling when we had those power users attack our team and our plan fell apart."

"Yeah." She said holding her stretch longer and longer. "My emotions are always weird, so I don't think it's a good indicator of my 'instinct,' but I just knew things were going to get worse and yet I felt relief."

"Relief?"

"Yeah, I already knew things were going to go wrong, and that the power users could flip our ambush over onto us." She said scratching her head. "When I saw Elise go down I hated that I wasn't good enough to have avoided it, and I hated that I was so relieved Elise was dying and not me. That I caught the other one in time and this one wasn't targeting me."

That wasn't what I'd expected. In my memory Jacklyn was a brave leader who charged to the defense of her comrades. It answered my question, though.

"That's fine. I don't think warriors should be judged by their self-preservation instinct, but by their willingness to ignore it. You sent me away, and went directly after him. You defied your fears. That's important too. It's what you're striving for."

I began to count on my fingers. "Alright, there's three things we need to do." I said. "We need to compile a list of what you're skilled at physically, what you're most skilled at in terms of using your youki, and then take into account your 'first instinct' and how you responded to it."

"If your instinct is to protect yourself but your response is to fight in the most dangerous place for the sake of others you're probably going to be most suitable for a defensive skill that encompasses your whole body or skill that takes into account the enemy's moves and reacts to it."

"I'm sort of good at thrusts and short-range dodging." She added matter of factly. She paused to consider things. "Hey, maybe it would help if you gave me an example. I doubt you'd be telling me all this without having first given it a try yourself. What was your 'first instinct?'"

I knew this question was coming. I tried to calm down my heartbeat.

"To kill, and my reaction was to use my own body as bait." I said. There was more to it than that, but I didn't want to tell her about my vow. I think, comrade or not, she'd laugh at me if I told her that.

"Also, the most suitable youki manipulation I found for me is a way to preset instructions in my limb's youki to move my body at a later time."

"How is that useful for combat?" She asked.

"It's not. You need to combine it with an image to strive for. A movement that encapsulates your instinct."

"And what move is that for you? The ultimate taunt?" She was probably thinking of my power.

"I'll tell you when I finish it."

«***»

AN: Clare has a problem. Alright many problems, but the one in regards to her memory shard this chapter is she doesn't have an instinctive understanding of how Teresa's powers work. She has only just begun to grasps how unique it is that Teresa could just transfer her power. Of course, she also doesn't even meet the minimum requirement to start working with long-term memory, which is going to require her to embrace conflict some more.

Current Known Ranked Warriors:

1\. Priscilla (unknown epithet)

3\. Kujira of the Nothingness

5\. God-eye Galatea

8\. Heat Haze Hilda

13\. Eva

Ophelia is probably in there somewhere between Galatea and Hilda, and may or may not have developed her rippling sword technique yet.

Storm Rain Hailey and Belle were also alive in the flashback. It is unknown if they are still alive.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 9: A Big Sis?

Six months ago the whole world shook.

Everyone and anyone could feel the monster awaken. The birth of a new abyssal one.

I despaired.

Jacklyn, Evelyn and even Lily tried to encourage me or lure me out of my depression. It took Selene finally seeing me, dragging me out to a practice hall and beating me bloody to cause me to begin to turn around.

In the end, she held the sword an inch from my throat and asked me what I was going to do about it. I had no answer. She threw her blade away. The sword we'd all been raised to even sleep with.

She told me next time she'll leave me to rot and be disposed of or worse. It was the pain and shame in her eyes that forced me to move. I didn't want to leave her feeling like that.

Still, I couldn't be like the rest. We all felt the wave, but none of the others could truly comprehend the magnitude of what had happened.

Teresa had fought the Silver King once. Neither had gotten serious. She just used 30% while he only partially awakened his arm. It was a spar on another level.

After that Isley jokingly begged her to never awaken. That he'd never seen a worse monster. Teresa had promised that if she awoke she'd just claim the central region and leave him and his castle alone.

Isley had never realized she'd used the match to copy his memories. I'd never touched them. If Hysteria alone could almost possess me then I wasn't getting near them with a ten foot pole.

Still, I had seen Teresa's reaction to witnessing them.

She'd called him a completed nexus. Then she'd begun training even harder than before.

I don't always understand what she means when she talks about techniques or quality vs quantity, but I understood enough in this instance.

Priscilla is beyond me.

I threw myself back into more training and killing. It was empty but I found a paradoxical satisfaction in that. Teresa had also felt empty until meeting me. She had even flirted with the idea of awakening. Dangerous thoughts, but she more than any other warrior understood the process and what lay on the other side.

I think I caused Jacklyn more headaches with how reckless I became. It didn't help that Evelyn had taken to drinking, boasting and picking fights with townspeople. She never took it too far and most had the sense to back off, but I think we were quickly burning through any good will we earned by saving our last handler.

The low note for our team was when Jacklyn got sent up to the next class to work in pairs after just three more months. We got a new girl, Candice, who seemed to have also been pushed into more advanced classes early. Some of her basics were a little sloppy, but she was still probably as good a fighter as Lily.

She also had a power to make a single target (but not herself) intangible for 3-5 seconds. It was a good defensive power. The only issue was how irregular the interval was. For a warrior the difference between 3 seconds and five was an eternity.

Still, I can't complain. It was at least more useful than mine, and she saved my life more than once by using it on me or my attacker. But she was no Jacklyn.

Lily ended up being the default leader since Candice was too shy, Evelyn too brash and I was just kind of apathetic. We recovered, and didn't lose anyone else. It helped that they sent us on fewer missions after Jacklyn left. They also added a new type of training-anti-army training.

They taught us through example how vulnerable we were to waves of arrows or javelins. If only they asked me to design the enemy tactics. My power doesn't work as well on vague enemies I don't know much about, but if you want to pick apart "Claymores" you can do it through gas attacks with the right chemicals, traps that reduce their mobility plus barrages, or either drugs or disease.

Most of us are too arrogant. No poison working on us does not mean we cannot be drugged. All it would take is a tiny ounce of awakened flesh.

Moreover, even before the organization began researching it, Leigia's infamous aura was a youki version of mankind's oldest enemy-disease. If her technique had been refined to not lose as much potency as it passed from one carrier to the next victim, then she could have been an Abyssal level entity even without awakening. Her short tenure as a number one was likely not an accident.

In any case, the organization's war games, while not a one-sided slaughter, were still cruel enough. We learned to live and die by the abilities of anyone who could create defensive walls, fortifications or smoke screen devices.

We also learned in our drills that no amount of soldiers will matter if you get the right power for the job. Twenty-two of us trainees were given a sample fort. More than half of us were on the verge of graduating like Jacklyn and many of us had powers of our own.

We were still blindsided. I realized my own and other knowledge powers only work if we can give it the right clues.

Number 10 walked right in and then walked out. She did not even need to use 10% of her youki. When she walked out twenty of the twenty two of us had fallen asleep. One brawler who had an automatic healing factor seemed to resist it naturally and the other was merely left awake to fight him.

They both reported seeing and losing to #10 after the rest of us fell. If it were not for my own ability to copy their memories and the way each other's wounds coincidentally matched up with each other's strikes, I might also have been fooled.

Afterwards, I found a couple of my favorite informants among the Organization's men to flirt with and skim the memories of. The other side was enlightening. They feared a war with one of the Abyssal Ones or the Rabonians. The loss of the number one was incredibly public. I think only the fear of the New Abyssal of the South kept everyone home. Well, that and the threat of civil war.

Prosperity was threatening to lead to war. Never before had there been a surplus large of labor and the crippling threat of the Yoma were becoming more manageable each year. Now the surplus allowed leaders to fund full-time soldiers and knight training for the masses.

Our war games were nothing but shallow copies of the ones that had sprung up in the South and West. These war games provided not just training, but an outlet to simulate a war and demonstrate either that it would be too costly to fight, or defeat was inevitable and it was best to just surrender to the dominant party's terms.

It was still a new concept, and it didn't always work. Two prominent cities in the South were rumoured to have actually gone to war over a knowledge bearer who could find Yoma.

I learned one other secret. A theory that was unpopular partly because of how pessimistic it was. I refused to believe it too. Better to live as a fool than to be crushed by reality.

After three more months I got an invitation to join the pilot phase of a new project. Project Geppetto sought to not only help offensive warriors who lost body parts recover. The end goal was to graft even stronger parts than the originals onto a warrior.

I hesitated at first because the offer came from the Retrieval Squad. They had a bad reputation, and I knew I was not considered useful or valuable yet to the organization. I may have been chosen simply because I had a missing appendage and was expendable.

But they didn't give me time to think. They needed an answer that day. What sold me was the second part of the project's goals-the promise of power.

When I arrived, I met #7, Older Sister Ophelia. Eva had never worked together with her on a hunt but she'd heard rumors that her power expanded upon. Ophelia was a young up and coming warrior with potential to hit the low single digits. Maybe even #2.

She was also insane.

There were two things you needed to know about her. She was obsessed with awakened beings, and she loved playing the older sister even towards older warriors. Most, agreed to play along regardless of their feelings on the matter.

"Heya, Clare. Nicetomeetcha." She greeted me with overflowing cheer. "You can call me big sis or sis or sissy-poo. That last one was a joke, though. Don't call me that."

"Uhh, sure big sis. But just to clarify, what's your real name?" I asked as I followed Ophelia into the Retrieval squad's building.

"Oh, I guess I should have led with that. I'm Ophelia Victoria, #7's my rank, and its not changing any time soon if I have anything to say about it. I'm not giving up the luckiest number ever!" Her smile was pleasant, but it was a predator's smile. All my power could come up with about her was she was too willing to take risks to become stronger. Funny it said the same to me sometimes.

"Now that I answered your question would you mind telling me your full name? I only know your first one from my crabby sis who did the paperwork on this little event."

Eva hadn't been able to confirm but her power suggested knowing her full name was a requirement to use her power. A power that seemed to affect probability in some manner. I vaguely remember Eva's power also suggested something about a knowledge type application that was biased.

Still, I couldn't just refuse to give it. That would be suspicious and I didn't want to attract anymore of her attention than I absolutely had to.

"Sure. But, Clare really is my full name. I was only given a first name."

Ophelia's vulpine smile grew then she froze.

"Oh my. Well, it's nice to meet you then, Clare. I hope we can get to know each other a lot more. It's too bad I've been so busy I haven't had much time to check the progress of all my younger siblings. If you ever need help feel free to ask." She said as she guiding me into a large hall.

Inside the hall was a deep, circular pit. An awakened corpse was strung up to the ceiling by chains attached to rods embedded in its flesh. Around it was a circular, multi-story platform to observe it and take samples from multiple areas.

"Do you like the decorations? Some new warriors are shocked or even scared when they see their first awakened being in the flesh."

I suddenly realized that, while it was interesting, I had observed it like it was a mere curiosity instead of my first time seeing an awakened being.

"Uhh, I was struck speechless." I stumbled through saying.

"Idiot." I thought at myself.

"It's alright. Only 20 meters long. She was a number 31. The big ones can reach fifty meters."

It wasn't long, but it was still impressively thick and squat. A belly ringed with horns bent downwards. A third armed projected from her back.

"Why are you so interested in Awakened Beings, Ophelia? Most warriors try to avoid getting picked for such battles, but you're-"

"Enthusiastic? I could tell you that it's important that the strong do their duty and it prevents those weaker or younger than myself from having to be fielded. But those are really just perks. In truth, I love my job. It's why I try to volunteer with the Retrieval Squad whenever possible."

I decide to try again. "Most would be unsettled at seeing a possible future for themselves."

"Let me tell you," she said dancing ahead of me. "You don't need to awaken to be a monster, and although you should avoid awakening, becoming an awakened is far from the worst possible end for a person."

With a flourish she showed me to a backroom I hadn't been able to see when I first came in. It had been directly opposite us with the awakened corpse in between blocking my view. As I tentatively walked in I felt Ophelia give me a strong shove.

"Miranda, you're new guinea pig has arrived." She sang.

"Ophelia, you really shouldn't call your younger sisters guinea pigs." Said a woman in a white coat over form-fitting white armor. She was not wearing the traditional silver pauldrons of a full warrior, but I could feel from her aura that she was one, and an impressively strong one too.

"They're my little sisters outside of here. But in here they're your guinea pigs. No point dressing it up."

She sighed and then turned to me. "Hello, Clare right? My name is Miranda number 42."

What?

"Ahh, they don't advertise it, but aside from the 40 active warriors who see combat there are a number of non-combat related positions. For example, number 43 has an ability that lets her control nitrogen. Its commercial applications are more valuable than her combat prowess, so earlier this year she was demoted to #43. She has not taken it well. I think they should just renumber us. Give us non-combatants negative numbers or something, but I suppose that might just be my ego talking."

It struck me then. The thing that was wrong. "Your hair is black." In some of the handlers memories I had seen her and assumed she wasn't a warrior because of her hair color. Females working in the organization were very rare. Certainly unheard of among the handlers, but for a talented scientist I had thought they'd just made an exception.

Now that I could feel her aura I realized they'd made a bigger exception than I expected. Her aura was bright and vicious.

"Ahh, an invention of mine. Still in its trial phase so don't get your hopes up. Anyway, you're not here to hear me talk about myself. You've accepted a position as subject #3 in project Geppetto. Before we go any further you should see this."

She brought me around to a cabinet, and pulled out a bucket filled with a purple liquid. She immediately stuck her hand in and drew out a hand and wrist. There was about two inches of forearm too, and beneath the liquid dripping off its end I saw an ebony bone.

It was a left hand just like the one I'd lost.

"I don't believe in forcing my experiments onto others."

"Right?" Mentioned Ophelia sarcastically.

"Oh, shush you." She warned. "Anyway, I'm going to give you one last opportunity to back out. If you do so this goes back in the bucket, you'll go back to your squad, and as long as you keep quiet about everything you've seen today you can pretend none of this ever happened."

"And if I agree?"

"I slap this on your stump, and then you'll be visited by a worker periodically to report about what its like to have a single digit appendage."

"I'm not going to freak out or ask questions about where it came from. I'm ready."

"Are you? You really should ask where this came from? After all, this isn't just a normal single digit appendage. This was harvested from the body of an awakened being by the woman behind you. Impressively, she cut it off before it could even transform."

I turned to see Ophelia lightly smirking.

"This isn't just a warrior's hand." Continued Miranda. "It's a hand that was once part of a hybrid that utilized 100% of her youki. It may have unusual properties, especially when matched to a warrior who has not awakened." She paused to give me time to digest that.

"You said I was going to be subject number 3. What happened to #1 and #2?"

"Number 2 experienced a small change in her diet. She eats three times as much now, and has reported cravings. Subject number 1 awakened one week after the transplant, but her sample was collected by a less competent fighter. It showed traces from its original holder's awakened form since it had just begun to transform into an awakened form before it was removed."

"That might not have been the issue. Just give the girl the raw numbers on her odds. It's A 50-50 gamble."

Miranda frowned at that, but didn't disagree.

I wanted to take it anyway. I knew the goal was power exceeding the original body part, but I had expected just a limb from a high ranked warrior. Perhaps a traitor or deserter. This was much more dangerous.

And yet, it also had so much more potential. Could I partially awaken the limb while maintaining my human mind? I had no idea. No one had ever tried something like this before. I was certain subject #2 was playing it very, very safe given what happened to her predecessor.

"Can you answer one question? Why me?"

Miranda's eyebrows rose. "You do realize Ophelia only lopped off a left arm before it transformed. While quite a few warriors lose limbs many lose them at the elbow or shoulder. There were only two of you that had lost a left hand. Although, I think the other girl had a bit more of her wrist left."

"And was I chosen because I was the less useful one?"

She laughed at that. "Not quite. You were chosen because your old handler Morel highly recommended you."

I was shocked. I hadn't seen Morel since we'd escaped all those months ago. I half expected he'd been executed for leaking a secret during the torture, or assigned to the coldest no man's land in rural Alphonse for getting captured in the first place.

"So what will it be? I do have another candidate I can offer this to. If both of you turn me down plenty of colorheads would lop off their own left hand at the chance to get power and make something of themselves."

"I accept." I said.

"Good." She nodded at Ophelia, who drew her sword. Before I could turn towards her she'd sliced through my left arm.

I screamed and grasped at my bleeding stump.

"You need a fresh wound to be able to attach this limb to it. There's also a chance of rejection. This sample isn't getting any younger, but if you fail to connect with it, it will just fall off and you can walk out no worse than you came in. Alright, plus a bleeding stump, in that case."

She offered me the hand and wrist. I took it with my right hand, that had been strongly clamped onto my left limb. With an effort I brought it to my wound and began to raise my youki. I brought my youki up to 55% and then concentrated on directing it into that region. I began to visualize the parts I needed to reconnect piece by piece. It became hard to steadily control and focus the energy, so I clamped it down to only 50%.

"She's so slow. She needs more practice."

"Oh shush. She's just a trainee and not a genius like you. Besides, I'm sure her idea of practice and your idea are leagues apart."

The limb was odd. I could feel the energy inside it rise up and respond to my own. I tried to stimulate it, but it only got more quiescent in response. While the regeneration was going on well physically, if I couldn't get it to merge with my youki then I might only be getting a pound of flesh that was shaped like a hand. I needed it to connect to my youki network and pool.

"Damn you. DaMN YoU." My power was telling me what my problem was. My youki was too weak. It was like a child waving around a Claymore. It refused to respond to my measly, unqualified aura.

I brought my youki up to 60% and then 70%. I was not weak. 75%.

"Is it stimulating her aura?"

"No, I think she's just trying to break it and mix their energies. There's too big of a gap in quality."

"Clare, if you can hear me. Stop trying to brute force it."

I did hear her and a part of me took note. I pushed my aura down. It slowly shrank back to 60%.

"The second subject took two hours to bond with it and only achieved a partial mixing of energies at the point of attachment. Just let it soak in your power."

I realized it was Miranda speaking to me. Her voice was coming from a long way off, but I followed her advice.

After an hour and a half the limb was attached and my youki network had begun to merge. It was still incomplete. It felt weak and fragile like it had atrophied and required exercise to rebuild. Physically, though, it felt fine, only the youki was disturbed.

"Excellent work, Clare." Said Ophelia. Miranda was long gone. After ten minutes she had excused herself to work on another project.

"Thank you...big sis." I was too exhausted to say more. I was also embarrassed at my mistake earlier.

"I have a bit of time tomorrow. I think I'll stop by to check how your arm is doing tomorrow, little sis."

When she finished escorting me out of the Retrieval Squad's building, I offered her my left hand.

"Thank you, again. Would you care to have my first left-handed handshake in, well, many years."

She looked at the hand I offered her and then my face and then back at my hand. Then she broke into a grin. "No, I think you should save that for a friend. See you tomorrow Clare."

She turned around and disappeared back inside.

«***»

Current Known Ranked Warriors

1\. Priscilla (unknown epithet)

2\. Kujira of the Nothingness

4\. God-eye Galatea

6\. Heat Haze Hilda

7\. Older Sister Ophelia/The Voracious Cannibal

13\. Eva

Author's Note

The key number to avoid awakening for a warrior is to keep the youki below 80%. If you're unskilled you should keep it even lower.

The Organization was always careful to hide #10, who in case you don't know is their anti-warrior specialist and the ace in the hole against rebellion. The fact that she's now being advertised and used as a scare tactic probably means they have another reliable ace in the hole.

An interesting thing to note about Claymore universe is that there's so much fighting going on none of the active warriors with powers are at risk of being driven to extremely excessive danger for the sake of conflict. We may see a rise in reckless behavior from other groups, but they basically are getting their fill of conflict and fighting without the shard having to do much behavioral modifications. That may not hold for number #41 and onwards, though.

I also find it amusing Ophelia is obsessed with her lucky number 7 given in Canon she was #4, which was a terribly unlucky number in many Eastern cultures.

By the way, Leigia is a number one who is a homage to the Leigia who appears in Nanozom's Silver Eyed Slayer (although my version will only share the same name and rank not abilities or history). I highly recommend it for amazing world building and expansion of the mechanics of youki. It's a slow starter since at first the author tries to match some of the plot arcs, but the author makes a number of wonderful improvements that multiply and build over time (e.g. instead of Raki we get a Priscilla-like Cthulhu and instead of Jean we get an Awakened Being companion). After reading that fanfiction, I realized the series missed a wonderful opportunity by never displaying an aberrant Awakened Being who didn't wish to kill or eat flesh and blood. The battle with one's nature and the MC's need to reevaluate how she treats Awakened Beings is a wonderful wrench to throw into things. After all, characters who are evil "just because" are boring.


	12. Chapter 12

Interlude: Dauf and Riful

(Dauf)

Dauf was in trouble. Ever since the appearance of these "God-touched," his sweetheart had been in a frenzy collecting people right and left. She even started building a city to hold her new toys.

"Crush her!"

Her toys that were rebelling again!

"Roaaarrghhh"

Riful told him to put down the rebellion again. But this time Rose was leading the rebels.

"Just please give up, Sweetheart. I need to defeat you so I can fight the rebels like you told me to."

"YOU IDIOT! Zaki has you brainwashed. You didn't take him out first like I told you to."

"I would have but they were all Zaki."

"That's not an acceptable excuse." Said Riful as she concentrated and stretched her senses. An instant later she stabbed through two buildings and separated Zaki's head from his body. Her aim was perfectly precise thanks to the implant Zaki and other high risk soldiers received. Each implant was made from a fragment of his Youki rods but with slight deviations in potency to make them distinguishable.

Huh?

Why was I-

Riful picked me up with several appendages and hurled me at Rose's 40 meter tall form.

I crashed into her with my butt. When she tried to puff some pollen into my face I quickly bashed her with some hardened youki rods.

"You're why Riful is so mad at me." I bellow.

I tear all of the petals and vines surrounding her core. Before I can land a final blow I'm stopped.

"Wait." Said Riful. "Rose, I suppose you were the ringleader of this group. I'm embarrassed you thought this would be enough. Do I look like the type of fool who would just stand there and wait for Zaki to get complete control?"

"Master..." She begged pitifully.

"Let me put her out of her misery." I suggested.

"No you idiot. Someone put her up to it. They probably want me to execute a third of my forces or this was an assassination attempt aimed at you given I've been having you handle these rebellions." She says while eyeing the several others, who had been fighting with them. They have all fallen to the ground and are no longer fighting.

Huh?

"I need information on who's behind this so take her to my dungeon, but keep her alive."

"Okay, Riful."

"Oh yes, and Dauf." She said sweetly.

Uh oh.

"Yes?"

"What did I say the time you screwed up and killed that power gifter."

"If I screw up again you're dumping me."

"And what did you do today?"

"But, but...I can do better."

"You always say that. We're through Dauf. I'm going to send some spies to check if Isley is dating anyone."

"NOOO! Please, please take me back. I'll do anything.

If you want take another lover then fine, but please don't dump me. I promise to do better."

"WHAT?" Riful huffed and looked down on him with true fury on her face. "You mean to suggest I take on half a man as a lover. A man who can only half satisfy a woman deserves to be with me."

"Uhhh, no?"

"Just go Dauf." She said with a sigh. "Take care of Rose and then leave me alone for the day." She turns to the remaining rebels.

I carry Rose on my back. I punch her periodically to vent my steam but give her time to regenerate after each blow. After only three strikes she reverts back to human form, and I secure her to a table. Then I left the keep and went down into the forest.

(Riful)

With a sigh Riful watched Dauf go.

"Tough love, Dauf. Tough love."

She turned back to Rose and examined her like a flower in her garden that had become diseased. Still beautiful but her role was now to help her protect other flowers.

"As useful as you have been for Dauf, it's time for you to spill your secrets. Relax, since you are going to die no matter what there is no possibility that you could be punished for what you tell me. Also, while I am angry that I lost a useful piece like Zaki, I place that blame at the feet of whoever came up with this plan, not you."

I stand and slowly approach the table on which she is tied spread-eagle. Her clothes lost in the transformation to her true form have not been replaced. She is already entering this battle of wills at a disadvantage.

"Oh yes, and if some 'God-touch's blessing' is controlling you or keeping your mouth shut then my apologies. This is going to be needlessly painful and an utterly pointless exercise in the end."

"Please." She whispered.

"What's that?"

"Ashley's power. Truth." She forced out of her cracked lips despite her collapsed lung.

"Ahh, you want me to do this the easy way. Yes, Ashley or even Felicity, if I feed her enough, could probably help me get to the bottom of this far quicker, but let's leave that as a last resort. After all, I have a lot of frustration to get off my chest right now, and I don't want my friends to have to see me until I've vented them all out."

"I'll tell you what, I'm not unreasonable." I say as she whimpers. "If you fully cooperate then after Ashley has checked, I'll give you an easy death and take all my frustrations out on the corpses of you and Zaki."

I hope she doesn't take it. I give her a second to ponder that offer, which she blows. She's babbling now about Chronos and Lars working with...that's stupid. They're both already dead.

A thought occurs to me. Rose is just muscle to help manage the others but maybe this will be the day she becomes more than that.

"Okay, here's a third option. I think you'll like this best of all. Maybe if you awaken an especially useful power, I'll put you on a chain and let you live. I wonder if the fact that your life is riding on it will help you awaken with a unique or valuable ability." Perfect, now there is even a way for my opponent to not lose. Now the game can truly begin.


	13. Chapter 13

AN: This is a double update and there was an update yesterday, so be careful not to skip any chapters.

Chapter 10: An Older Sister's Attention and a New Mission

My new hand was a curse. It took a few weeks to break through my denial and accept my reality.

Suddenly I feel her approach. From farther away then I'd been searching. "Alright. You're out of time. That means we switch. 1, 2, 3..." Said Ophelia loudly as counted down.

I leapt away. First I put some distance between us, and then suppressing my aura as low as it could go before trying to hide. Unfortunately, with my aura suppressed my footspeed was less than a third of Ophelia's when hers was suppressed. That gave me a much more limited radius to hide in before Ophelia finished counting to one hundred.

I settled for a cliff. I climbed down it and clung to an outstripping or rather to the cliff just below an outcropping. It would be impossible to see me from above, and below it was a river, while across the river was another cliff. I hoped she wouldn't be able to see me while standing on the other cliff opposite the river.

Next I focused on suppressing my aura. This wasn't just about hitting 0%. At 0% there is still the passive amounts of youki lingering in ones muscles and skeleton that will give you away. A true master at stealth can gather that energy and compact it until it is no more than the shadow of a wisp.

"So, this was the best you could do?"

Shoot. I thought I had more time.

Ophelia picked up a boulder and threw it at the outcropping I'm hiding below. It smashed that part of cliff and forced me to leap aside.

Ophelia tackles me and takes me into the river.

I pull my head up a mile downstream. Her speed and strength advantage were less useful underwater. A useful trick I should keep in mind if I ever manage to get a superior opponent to fight me beside a river or lake.

"And now it's time for the penalty." Whispers Ophelia into my ear.

Before I can jump in surprise she has lopped off an arm and a leg.

"What are you waiting for?" She says with a smile. "Your comrades are being killed by an awakened who just disabled you. Do a patchjob and get back into battle."

I follow her instructions. Eight minutes later I'm done.

"Hmm, you're down to four minutes per a limb. Much better than a month ago, but still too slow. A team of three facing an Awakened Being will either have killed it or been slaughtered after several minutes. You're obsolete."

"I took care of the leg a bit faster than the arm. I can fight with one arm too."

"Except I cut off your dominant arm. If you intend to fight with one arm you should have better defended your dominant one."

We transitioned back to me seeking out Ophelia. At one point she stops trying to hide and just takes off. It becomes a race until she turn around and decks me. The last thing I saw was her open fist coming at my head. My power working overtime decided to tell me exactly how hard this was for Ophelia. Another weakness is that she finds it hard to hold back.

It's been 5 months since I got my new hand. Ophelia drops by sporadically to help me kick my training up a notch. Some weeks our schedule matches one day. Others she's too busy to see me. Once I didn't see her for three whole weeks.

If I didn't know so many warrior's training plans she might have conned me with her speeches about "this is standard once you graduate," or "when you become a single-digit you have to do this blindfolded."

I think she knows I don't buy it and just keeps wanting to tease me. The worst part is even if she is lying about it being standard for other warriors I get the feeling she could do this all day blindfolded with another person on her back.

As for side-effects, they've been interesting. My appetite has significantly increased and I also noted the roughly weekly cravings. The worst part has been my progress with my technique. Having the new hand almost trivializes the sacrifice involved. It never occurred to me it could be a setback on that front. On the other hand, my new hand also has some weird muscle memory. I can't get memories from it, but it retains a bit of the unconscious habits of its previous user. It hasn't even let me rebuild the original owner's style or technique since it was the offhand not the dominant hand for fighting.

The final drawback has been that it's impossible to get too close to my limit. I've never gone past 75%, but with this hand my youki can sometimes be randomly inflate like a wave hidden beneath the ocean until it nears the shore. I have a new self-imposed limit of 65% of my youki until I get more comfortable with it.

In the meantime, the organization took my new hand as a sign I was ready for taking missions in pairs. My partner has been Evelyn. She has been quite vocal telling me I should have rejected the new hand. I didn't realize it would get us promoted and cause me catch Ophelia's interest. Fortunately, yoma are not really challenges to the two of us anymore.

The greater danger is on the road to and from our missions. We often don't bother to make camp and just run the entire way there and back.

Three months ago Jacklyn finally went from trainee to number 29. Her style isn't fully combat ready, unfortunately. Still, we congratulated her and she got to face me and beat me in a match with both of my hands. It didn't really change anything since her range and power is the biggest issue in a match. Plus her footwork and charges have gotten even sharper.

I'm a little disappointed that it feels like we're growing apart. It's not surprising, though, given how often we get to run into each other. That day I wanted to ask Jacklyn to warble a song for us, but with the others present I didn't know how she would take it. Why does everything feel like it's getting more complicated?

Our mission today wasn't a Yoma extermination. Something had killed off ten families in Easton. The village militia had managed to kill it with help from a new weapon the chief had bought called a Boom Crossbow. It looked like a cross between a six foot 300lb dog and a lizard based on the scales. Whatever it was the village wanted to know where it had come from and if they could expect more. The Organization wasn't collecting any fees because they also held a research interest in identifying its origins.

"Be careful with that." Screeched Fel at me.

When the news had reached Staff Fel had grabbed the nearest group and drafted us into playing pack's and bodyguard for him on this mission.

I was carrying two bags of sample collection equipment, while Evelyn held an ungainly chemical weapon for him that he wanted to field test if we came upon trouble. On her back was a first aid kit and cage for a mutant messenger bird.

We were making good time despite Fel's extra luggage and that he was with us because he was riding a horse. His mount couldn't match our speed, but it was setting a challenging pace considering we were carrying his luggage.

"You know as bad as things are back here, at least we're not that horse." Mentioned Evelyn quietly while lifting and shaking her derriere and miming that it was so large it could sag on the ground.

I giggled.

"If you have time to laugh then step up the pace. What happens if the person or being responsible moves on before we get there."

"Shouldn't we be more worried that it's an issue beyond a couple trainees ability to handle?"

He scoffed at that. "You're both candidates for promotion so together you add up to a decently high rank warrior. Also, that's what that weapon is for. If it's a weak awakened being or a strong power user then just make sure we can deploy it."

After another two hours Easton came into sight. A burnt out patch in the middle looked like the damage from the previous fight. Unfortunately, we were not the first investigators to arrive. A figure hovered in the air taking in the sight. Below him was an older gentleman saying something to the flying figure, who wore the white robes and breastplate of a Saint.

Current Known Ranked Warriors

1\. Priscilla (unknown epithet)

2\. Kujira of the Nothingness

4\. God-eye Galatea

6\. Heat Haze Hilda

7\. Older Sister Ophelia/The Voracious Cannibal

13\. Eva

29\. Jacklyn

These rankings are the last known rankings of these warriors. Its possible they have gotten a lower number as lower warriors died or been pushed up if new high rank warriors joined the ranks like Alicia and Beth.

AN: By the way, Ophelia was cheating in this chapter and Clare never noticed. She still has a lot to learn.

Omake: The Tale of the Blind Sentinel

The following is an excerpt from the diary of a merchant who lived near the beginning of the Reunification Wars.

 _The "Blind Sentinel" wasn't a very popular folktale. The biggest obstacle to her popularity was her avoidance of populated areas. Some have even claimed she didn't exist and was merely a fictitious legend passed along by merchants to encourage scared travelers to journey farther with them._

 _I have a friend, however, who swears by the twin goddesses that she exists and helped him once. I believe him._

 _According to him, the blind sentinel met him when he broke an axle and nearly had to abandon his cart along with most of his goods._

 _When she came up the road behind him she hardly spoke. Merely asked him if he needed help and then offered to assist him in carrying his goods to the nearest town. He thanked her. He fully expected her to only help him carry an armful or two (or rob him in which case he also had a countermeasure). Instead she picked up the back of his cart and helped walk it, with wheels in the air, to the nearest town._

 _That was the Blind Sentinel. Understated strength, power and generosity. The campfire tales would have you believe she saved a bloke everyday, but I bet most of her interactions were just like that. She wouldn't refuse a meal or gift, but she also never demanded one. She always asked for directions to trouble. Then she'd leave soon but in no particular hurry in the direction of the worst rumors. That was one of the defining features of an encounter with the Sentinel._

 _Another one, of course, was her blindfold. Given the widespread reports of her fighting yoma, bandits, and even rogue "God-touched" with her blindfold on we can only surmise she had some other method of seeing. There are even tales of bandits who didn't realize there were Yoma in their ranks. She killed those Yoma disguised as bandits in the blink of an eye before asking the rest if they wanted to continue or lay down their arms and just leave. She tended to get her way in the end and must have been either a "God-touched" or one of the Silver-Eyed Witches._

 _The most common theory was that she was an angel sent down from the heavens. Or an incarnation of a goddess who took pity on the suffering of her people and chose to come down and dwell among them. The way she watched over them, even without eyes, made people think of a shepard of travelers, the kidnapped and the outcasts. I think that's where she got her nickname._

 _Personally, I think she was a Claymore who left their ranks to assist people without sucking them dry. After all, despite the simple black clothes my friend saw her wearing, she also carried a large sword. This wasn't just for show according to the stories that claimed she drew and swung it faster than the eye could see. Of course, there were also exaggerated claims like that she could spot a person in trouble from 400 meters away through thick forest cover._

 _I heard once that the Saints had dispatched a representative to recruit her. They probably promised she could do far more good work with them than on her own. Maybe they also offered her forgiveness for her nature if she was a Claymore or former Claymore._

 _She never did become a saint. Nor did they call for worship of the goddess made flesh. Maybe she turned them down or they never found her. The Blind Sentinel also might have thought it was too dangerous to be seen as affiliated with their group since invariably she was reported wandering the wilder outlying regions of Alphonse and Lautrec._

 _That was land even saints feared to tread._

 _In terms of when she began traveling most estimate the rumors picked up several months after the South was cutoff. Perhaps she was driven out of Mucha._

 _Whatever her story she was one of the more enigmatic characters in an age filled with many great heroes, villains and world-shakers. The mystery only deepened when one day she simply vanished._

 _I remember a fellow in the Scholar's Guild put up a 500 gold reward for information that would lead to a meeting with her. Either he just had money to burn or she must have done him one massive favor._

 _The post went up and stayed up for 6 months until he took it down. I think that's when people realized she was really gone. No rumors and no credible information even for that price, could mean nothing else._

 _I remember thinking that maybe she found what she'd been looking for. Chasing bad news and troubles week after month after year._

 _It's a nice thought, but she was probably eaten._


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 11: The Lesser Evil

"What do you leeches want?" Said the saint while hovering a meter off the ground.

The saint looked like Haas in his late twenties or early thirties. He wore a white robe with a lowered cowl. At his side was a decent quality sword and knapsack.

"We have come at the request of the townspeople to perform an investigation. We are even doing so free of charge. We're hardly leeches." Said Fel who remained mounted.

"Such generosity." He said disdainfully. "You're probably only here hoping to kidnap another one of the God-touched if you can find one. And one act of 'generosity' does not change what you are?"

"Oh, and would you truly claim the one responsible for your God as a God-touched. The perpetrator seems more devilish than even these girls behind me."

He turned to glare at us. Evelyn matched him glare for glare, but I found it difficult to meet his eyes.

"Whoever is responsible, if they weren't already killed will receive divine retribution for misusing the gifts of God. He does not need your help to rectify man's failings."

He turned away then and flew up and began scouring the damaged houses on the opposite side of town.

"What a tool." Snorted Fel.

We then met with the local chief. They had at first wanted to burn the body of the attacker to ashes after finally bringing it down. The death count had been 22 with many others injured.

There had been a worry, though, that this might be the first of more attacks, and clues would be needed to learn the cause of this. The attacker had not run into town, but appeared from within their midst. No eye witnesses from when it began its assault were alive, unfortunately.

Thus, as a compromise a limb and a tail were removed and preserved while the rest of the body was dragged outside, burned and buried in barren land too poor for agriculture.

Still, they did not want to keep the samples. They had already offered one to Saintshold, and the remaining sample, the tail, was for us. We were to do what we willed with it as long as it left the city within a day. I understood their fear.

The Organization had conducted a number of covert raids to damage the Red Hand's support base and drive them away from the East. Easton was part of the central region dominated by the church, but it was close enough to the Organization that the Red Hand's presence was extremely unlikely.

Nevertheless, tales of where they had attacked were infamous, and Easton had no desire to attract their attention.

We were taken to a barn after that. Inside was most of a tail.

"It looks like strips have been cut out of it." Said Fel.

Uncomfortably the leader explained that some locals had probably snuck in to cut pieces off to try to sell.

"Fools. What do you see, Clare?"

I walked around it. Lifted it up, and tore off a tiny piece. The scales were almost black but we're too dull to shine.

"I get the feeling this form is very fluid. It probably got stronger as you fought it, so it needed to be beaten before it became too powerful."

"That's right." The chief confirmed. "When Roland first spotted it, I think it was two meters tall. When we brought it down it was closer to three. Midway through it seemed to open a third eye too, but that might have just been grown."

"What sort of tactics did it use?" I asked.

"It seemed to go after anyone close to it and tried to tear them apart. It never seemed too interested in taking time to eat them, though. It also didn't seem to identify or care about those of us with weapons anymore than those without. That's one reason we called you. It fought like an animal, not like a Yoma."

"I got the same feeling. It would be easiest to take it down with traps or ambushes before it manages to do much damage. It's growth isn't directly tied to time so much as the concept of damage, but I'm not quite sure how?"

"So all you can do is confirm the chief's report. Fine." Said Fel unfairly. "Is it giving any lingering youki signature?"

"No, sir." Said Evelyn stiffly.

"We'll pick it up then on our way back. Let's go back to where it happened."

We spent another few hours combing the site for clues with Fel periodically speaking to himself. I had unobtrusively copied his memory and was only half paying attention to the investigation. Mostly I was keeping a look-out for trouble.

The other half of my mind was collating names and places for secret labs and projects. I had never gotten access to the memories of someone this high up. He wasn't formally in charge of research, but he had a background in it and kept his own projects separate from the Head of Research and Development. He also kept abreast of their newest advancements.

My arm was one of no less than a 14 projects aimed at increasing the strength of their forces in a controlled manner. I hadn't realized but if I went rogue my arm was equipped with capsules of poison. The right aerosol agent would eventually get into my system and kill me from the inside within an hour. Drawing on youki would only delay it to two hours.

Probably less since I would likely have directed my youki flow to my lungs instead of my hand and bloodstream.

The most disturbing project was the Farm. A breeding lab for new Power Users complete with a trauma and brainwashing program. I wanted to do something about it but there was nothing I could do.

Then I saw project Infection.

"Clare! Hurry up. If we fall behind Fel again he'll get even angrier." I had frozen. Luckily Evelyn was watching my back and dragged me towards where Fel was analyzing some footprints.

"It looks like it jumped in size whenever it hit a house with a lot of people in it. Houses that were nearly empty didn't have the same effect so it definitely wasn't property damage." He muttered.

"Sir," I decided to report my biggest find. "When I was looking at the first house to be attacked I noticed someone broke into it from the kitchen window. That's probably the one who assisted it in making the first kill. My power was suggesting from the way they entered and the wounds on the first body that the perpetrator is probably a human power user. I do not think we're dealing with a voracious eater. If it was a yoma then they cloaked their youki very carefully and never used it at any point."

"Good that jibes with the information I got from one of the Saints."

"They're working with us." Evelyn said in surprise.

"No, but he wanted the info I had on any yoma signatures in the vicinity. I traded him for it." Fel said with a wicked smile. I think he took pleasure in the thought that the so-called Saint had to lower himself to speaking with us.

I sure did, but I still felt a little queasy from the earlier knowledge I got.

"Let's go." At last, Fel said. We had no leads about where the one who assisted in the first murder had gone. Eva might drop by in the future, but the trail was cold and only going to get colder.

When we got back to Staff we found it in chaos. A facility in the north Eastern area of Sutare had been attacked and reinforcements had been dispatched. Me and Evelyn were also sent immediately patch up Headquarters' perimeter since sending reinforcements had left large holes in our defenses. 8 hours later the last of the survivors had made their way back to Staff.

Numbers 18, 28 and 36 had been killed along with several trainees. The survivors spread rumors of black infiltrators who cut down warriors without slowing down a step. And a dark, monstrous, three-eyed lizard that decimated the facility until it collapsed inwards.

What caught my eye the most, however, was the look of the people returning. I recognized a few as important people related to the Farm. The Farm that had been in the Northwestern region of Sutare.

* * *

(?)

"Ms., I can't ever thank you enough."

"Thank them. They could use some more encouragement to stay on the straight and narrow." She said thinking of the disaster in Easton. That insult had not been worth the lives of dozens. Even if they would have done the same to others who couldn't take it. We'd also had to offer the weapon to the villagers to get them to claim the death had come at their hands.

"Besides, we're not home free. The beast left in the opposite direction towards another project. If it survives long enough to reach it, hopefully, it will serve as a good distraction again. In the meantime we need to get the pregnant and children further away."

It was days like this that made me long for my cave.

"Ms. I don't think we'll make it all the way out of the East no matter what distractions we muster."

"We don't have to make it that far, I said finally sensing the party we'd been trying to rendezvous with. They approached us from three directions. And surrounded our small caravan.

"Is this all? We were expecting over fifty."

"There are dozens of children in the wagons. These were all I could find." I said. I suspected our information was off and there were multiple farms. Unless they were butchering people right and left the numbers kidnapped vs the number we rescued plus the new generation just didn't match up.

"Fine. The Silver King appreciates your charity, and will fulfill his part of the bargain." Said the bald man wrapped in a blue cloak.

"I turned back to the recently liberated captives. I'm sorry, but we'll need to split up from here. I'll disrupt pursuit while these three will escort you to a man in the north. He is a tyrant, but a lesser evil, and he will ensure your families are not preyed upon or enslaved in exchange for your fealty."

I met their eyes and saw the sparks of hope reignite. The two helpers to the side looked slightly bitter. I didn't care. They were my responsibility and would do things my way. We weren't playing heroes-merely nicer villains, and we were about to hand over our spoils of war.

"One last thing," I asked the three who had come from the north. "Have you heard any further rumors of trouble?"

* * *

Interlude: Fiona

I once worked in my village as a tailor's assistant. One day a yoma attacked they killed four before a Claymore came and killed it. The yoma turned out to be my husband. After that I was driven out of our village by the four families who lost someone.

I was touched by...something. When I awoke I had a new power. I felt cold. No matter what I bundled myself in, I felt cold unless I was touching fire. Apparently I could also touch fire now. When I had warmed myself I could also emit that heat out in nearly invisible bolts. All that you could see were distortions in the air.

Things were looking better. I had heard about others with powers like mine. They could make their way to a major city and be employed as a guard or honorary knight. The Rabonian church also was working hard to recruit them.

I never gave a thought to hiding this ability. I figured if bandits or yoma attacked I would just burn them. The Silver Witches wouldn't harm me as a Yoma, and none of the wild beasts were as scary as a Yoma.

I was wrong. They came for me after I left a city on my way to the central region of Toulouse. I had earned pocket money as a street performer swallowing fire and then belching out smoke. I also baked bread in my hands for the crowd.

That night was the beginning of the darkest portion of my life.

I had nearly lost hope when she appeared. Covered from head to toe in blood. She tore the door off its hinges and called out for me follow her before doing the same to our neighbors. One after another until she had reached the end of the line.

We followed her. Over the bodies of those evil men and past beheaded or bisected silver witches. She met up with her twin who had another group of a dozen following her and then another identical one. I stupidly thought they were sisters until I saw the fourth one and realized they were identical clones.

The last one had been loading children into several covered wagons. In the background a dust storm and the roars and screams of others filled us with fear, She told us there was nothing to fear. It was simply her helpers. Her clones turned to wisps of smoke that flowed back into her.

Then we ran. The wagons were filled with only the children, the sick and the heavily pregnant. I did not qualify yet thankfully.

We walked and walked until we met strangers and our savior split off. To keep our pursuers busy she said before sprouting four new clones. Her back as left her behind looked so strong. I pictured myself standing there like her. After raiding the den of evil, and then daring to stand up to them again. I thought this must be what a true Saint looks like.

We left our savior behind and entered a land of frost. The few blankets they purchased were inadequate but one among us could remove the bark from trees in a single pull and another refashioned it into warm sleeves.

I was perhaps the luckiest. With my power I could just absorb a couple campfires worth of wood and be warm for the entire day. I even helped with starting the fires at night.

Our three escorts held themselves apart from us at first. I think we impressed them, though, when we fashioned cloths or parted the waters of a river to helps us cross. They began bringing down deer and birds for us. Once we went further north, though, they just brought back chunks of meat. I found a finger in it one day and threw up. I told no one what I saw.

It was a much needed reminder that we were lambs among wolves. We needed to become wolves.

Two days later we arrived in an valley oasis. The temperature itself in the valley was a little warmer than everywhere else. The heat seemed to bubble up from the earth and while it was still cold it was warm enough for them to grow some crops. The largest city we'd seen yet was nestled in this oasis. It didn't look like much because they built deep rather than up.

They took us to a courtyard and from a balcony approached a man and woman. The man held a thick mane of silver hair and an aura of authority and confidence. The woman seemed mildly amused by us but also had the most striking red hair and clothes too fine for a commonborn woman.

He welcomed us to his city and presented the rules. We were his flock and as long as we followed them he'd protect us. This was his vow.

We joined his city and they gave us jobs suited to our abilities. I was given a breathing apparatus and worked underground carving tunnels for lava to help direct the flow to new regions of the city.

Through the city we heard rumblings of war and disaster. A plague that displayed incredibly wide-ranging symptoms. Some called it a curse and others a message from the Gods to close off trade and contact.

I was glad I was in the far north. Even if the crops we harvested looked like deformed humans, at least we were safe and could leave whenever we wanted.

In my heart, I promised myself that one day I would head south. After I trained more with my powers and learned more of the fighting arts. I also would need better equipment and partners, but one day I would go south and stand as that woman had stood. I needed to or I would never forgive myself.

Within the pit of evil I had left my child. It was one of babies that we didn't bring with us, and I did not ask them to stop and look for it.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 12: A Broken Record and a Successful Hunt

When a warrior consumes the flesh of an Awakened Being the process can expose some to a process that leads to them becoming feral. The closest approximation I can find is to the effects of a human who consumes Yoma flesh, and turns into a Yoma.

Sometimes, however, the effects can be mild. Not madness but irrationality and inclusiveness bordering on foolishness. Of course, it's much more dangerous when exhibited by a warrior who can cleave boulders in a single swing, and even worse if that warrior is your leader leading you in an attack with an underpowered team and too many questions for comfort about its ability.

"Clare, why are you being so dour. You only get to pop your cherry once. This is a special day and I refuse to let anyone else be with you in this moment. We're all going to celebrate afterwards too. First two rounds of drinks are on me." She declared with a grin as she set off skipping.

That at least earned her the goodwill of number 19, Eliza. Number 30, Wendy, was almost as nervous as me. She had a minor innovator power, which she said worked best with gases and wind power devices. She had even built a windmill back at the base and together with Reines they set up lights without candles all over staff that illuminated rooms for half the night. For this mission she also carried a bag of devices, but she confessed they would probably only irritate it and let us buy time.

"Ophelia, is it really that surprising I'm nervous and not feeling grateful you requested me for this mission." I said.

"I didn't request you, Clare." Said Ophelia with forced shock and hurt. "I just requested number 32 for this mission, and you just happened to be promoted to number 32 the day after that."

As a double digit and, moreover, as a new double digit in the 30s, Ophelia could request me for any or every hunt she wanted. If they granted the request, and why wouldn't they with how eager she was to volunteer and take their nastiest missions, I could be riding her coattails for a short-time. A very short time if she requested me for every hunt as I feared.

"You should be requesting skilled warriors who will help increase your chances of success."

"Hey, there's no need to back talk to our leader." Said Eliza. "Besides, although, this mission is a little light on strength with a number 30 and 32, Ophelia's a skilled veteran. I heard in the last four hunts she's never lost a single party member. It's probably best for you that you get experience with this in a relatively safe setting."

"That's right. That's right. Listen to your older sisters. Besides, I made sure to pick a fun one."

I glared at her when she said that. Being an older sister is not a license to torture.

The Awakened Being we were hunting had been terrorizing a town in the Western quadrant by the name of Hanel. We had no information except that it had probably killed around 24 in the last two and a half days. The death toll would have been higher if they hadn't begun to spread out after the first day. The most worrisome factor was that no one could recall what the monster looked like or how they had died. Some of the deaths even offered right in front of others.

It had made a mistake, though, and had eaten the son of a prominent tax collector. He had pooled the town's resources and his own wealth to call us in. Ophelia claimed she was so touched by his story she pushed to take the job. Interesting power and decent fight had nothing to do with that battle nut's decision, right.

"I can feel it from here. It feels like a strong double digit." Said Eliza.

"Try again."

We turned to a strangely serious Ophelia. I tried to sense it's aura again but I could still not distinguish whatever she'd sensed.

"Is it-hollow?" Offered Eliza.

"Closer. There exist youki suppressants that will hide your aura. These are made from a combination of herbs, yoma parts and venomous. This one has come up with a crude version of the organization's suppressants and that's preventing us from reading the hollowed out portion of its power. You could get a similar effect if you diluted and contaminated a suppressant dose."

"How do you know something like that?" Asked Wendy. Even I found this information quite esoteric.

"You should hang out more with the retrieval squad. Why do you think I volunteer with them? Quite a bit of their low quality materials go back into making suppressants, and it wasn't hard to get the formula off of one of them once they let their guard down."

Then Ophelia distributed to each of us a pill. "In each of those is a partial dose of a suppressant that I've diluted. Take it and suppress your aura as low as it can go. Don't stick together and ring that clearing over there." She said pointing at a small dense forest with a clearing near the edge.

"I'll piss it off and lead it to that clearing. I'm a survivor, so don't worry about me. I may even get a trophy. Just spring out together and attack it when you hear me yell my full name, 'Ophelia Victoria, #7.' Do you understand?"

"Um, won't she be expecting four of us? It won't matter how well we hide if she's on the lookout for an ambush from the other three."

"In this case, I'll try to pass this off as an information gathering mission. It's not unheard of for those to be given to one fast and stealthy warrior, especially if they have a suitable power."

We all agreed, took her pill, and then got into position. I was actually pretty impressed with her plan. It wasn't foolproof or especially sophisticated, but most Awakened Being hunts from my memories tended to operate more like rowdy free-for-all's. Some leaders just sacrificed their lower ranking comrades to make openings for them to land the killing blow and claim all the glory. I wonder if more recent generations of warriors, especially with more small group training have begun turning it into more of a science rather than an art.

Twenty minutes later I finally sensed Ophelia's aura suddenly spike. The sound of a fight soon met our ears and it worked its way closer like a dance with an avalanche.

The power of it, however, felt...not as great as I expected. I thought based on it reportedly being on a weak suppressant that it would prove much more potent in battle.

"Nimue, you fight like an overweight hippo. If they hadn't sent me to gather information on your technique I would have expected you were just one of those monsters who survive by being too much trouble to kill. After all, I can't decide what's your face and what's your butt."

At last, she was in position. The being was shaped like a rhinoceros with thick bulky limbs and a head crowned with horns and bony support structures that would make cutting it a chore. It stood on two feet with a thick tail for balance that dripped some sort of unknown liquid.

Of greater concern was Ophelia's appearance. She looked haggard with her armor destroyed along one shoulder and the back torn out by some blow that must have been worse before she partially healed it.

"You're slowing down. I think you're built for walking not jogging." Mocked Ophelia.

"I know what you're trying to do, arrogant single-digit. Do you really think I can't sense your comrade."

Uh oh, there goes the plan.

"All you've done by bringing me here is gotten your friend killed. Two will fall as easily as one."

Or maybe not. I wonder who she can sense.

"Do you really think I need their help? I am Ophelia Victoria, number 7 of the greatest generation." She proclaimed as she charged from the front.

We rushed to join her from every side of the clearing. Of course, with my luck it ignored the others and threw a punch at me that had me making a desperate, barely sufficient dodge. Then it tried to charge at Ophelia, but was hamstrung by Eliza and slashed in the neck by Wendy.

Unfortunately Wendy's blow sank only handspan into her thickly muscled neck. Ophelia was brushed aside, but with her charge disrupted it did no damage to her.

"What there's four of you? Why would they send an tough single-digit with three other scrubs?"

Suddenly, I sensed a youki moving in the earth and threw myself back instinctively. I managed to prevent a headshot, but her toes that emerged from beneath me scraped out a chunk of my knee that I concentrated on healing.

This was bad. Across from me Wendy screamed out as she lost an arm that had been holding her pouch of bombs. I was frustrated I got the raw end of the deal. I'd trade an arm in a heartbeat for a working knee in a fight like this where mobility meant survival.

Wait! An arm? I looked at my left hand and suddenly knew the one among us that the enemy had sensed earlier was me. This thrice cursed hand.

"Watch out for feints! His head isn't his weakpoint. I think it's wearing that flesh like a suit of armor. You need to hit the center of his body and damage the Being's true head in there." My power had me smirking when I saw the enemy turn to me in shock.

This wasn't the first layered Awakened Being body I'd seen, but it had made a mistake. The thick dense structure of its body made it not very flexible or malleable. Once I picked up where it's main body lay I knew it couldn't move around very quickly to protect its main body from blows.

..

"to reach its stomach?" Said Wendy. Huh?

Ophelia had moved closer to Eliza. I need to focus, especially if it attacked us from underground again.

I could think of several theoretical methods, but the only realistic one I thought I was strong enough to pull off was for me was to get eaten and stab it from the inside. Actually that one isn't very realistic either, given she looked like she would enjoy chewing on me before swallowing.

Eliza began running at the Awakened Being. When it struck Elisa with a grazing claw that threw her back halfway to the trees, another figure in her shadow accelerated. Ophelia had been behind her while hidden from its view. Four claws popped up from the ground at Ophelia's feet, but in a move so flexible it almost looked like she no bones she slid around it. Up it's arm and then around to its wide back without losing any momentum. She slit the being's other hamstring and then dodged a kick by going between her leg. Then she tried to slice open its belly from below.

...

I felt disoriented. I was on the ground with a pain through my left side. I couldn't see anything. There was a grey cloud over the clearing, but I felt three strong youkis and one fading one.

...

Wendy's lower torso was missing. Only her upper one lay thrown discarded against a tree. Suddenly, I heard Ophelia scream. I pinpointed the source the Awakened Being's youki.

I had no confidence in running fast enough to strike it with my injuries, but I stood and launched a running throw with 30% of my youki. My Claymore left my hands like a javelin of hope and desperation.

..··...··...

"Get up, DAMN you, we need to retreat too." Suddenly I saw a fist hit Eliza in the back of her head before she went down. Standing above her was Ophelia. Half of her face was obscured by blood and bits in a macabre contrast with her other elfin half. The Awakened was screaming behind us. Was the screaming growing more distant or louder? No wait, I was screaming now too.

"Shhh. Your sister has everything well in hand. Everything is working out just fine." She said as she picked me up and began running. For the first time in the fight, I realized there was something strapped to her back besides her sword. It was a severed right arm.

* * *

AN: Clare's graduation was precipitated by the loss of several warriors last chapter. Just to be clear, you don't just graduate when you become stronger than rank 40. Priscilla graduated and immediately became #1. You graduate when they feel the benefit of more training is outweighed by the opportunity cost of not fielding you as a full warrior.

Current Known Ranked Warriors

1\. Priscilla (unknown epithet)

2\. Kujira of the Nothingness

4\. God-eye Galatea

6\. Heat Haze Hilda

7\. Older Sister Ophelia/The Voracious Cannibal

13\. Eva

19\. Eliza

29\. Jacklyn

30\. Wendy

32\. Clare

Note: These rankings are the last known rankings of these warriors. Its possible they have gotten a lower number as lower warriors died or been pushed up if new high rank warriors joined the ranks like Alicia and Beth.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 13: A Bad Influence

When we stopped, Ophelia put me down and crowed with delight.

"Hahaha! That was a rush. It's too bad Nimue's power wasn't very strong, but we shouldn't have to worry about pursuers any time soon."

What? "Ophelia, did you intend for us to get killed?" I demanded.

"Not killed. Just suffer a confusing defeat. Wendy wasn't part of my plans. A perfect victory would have seen her knocked out like Eliza." She said eyeing me.

"Anyway, perfection isn't always within the reach of my power, but I can usually get close to it, so we probably weren't going to be wiped out."

"That's not reassuring." I said. "Why didn't you fight to win? Are you trying to get demoted?" I thought of another possibility, but then discarded it. Not even she could be so depraved.

"Relax. We don't have to worry about demotions anymore because from now on we're deserters."

"..." Ophelia's smile went from wide and slick to a bit more nervous.

"This is actually a really well thought out plan, you know. Right now is the perfect time to desert because they're still dealing with breaking in the new number one, while they've just lost four warriors and a bunch of agents in that raid. They'll be scrambling trying to recover or track them, so investigating our disappearance given the memory tampering or erasing power Nimue used will be low priority. Since I let Nimue escape they'll probably just think Nimue won and took us with her."

"Wait, Nimue's the Awakened Being right?"

"Yup, former number #12 I think. Not actually that thought to fight, since her power just made you forget what you had been doing. You still were fighting back during the blackout periods."

The fight was starting to make more sense. After I blurted out her weakness Nimue started throwing her power around. It didn't actually make our hits or attacks any less effective since we just forgot the blows we'd exchanged previously, but it would have disrupted and destroyed any hopes of formulating a long-term strategy or tactics to exploit her weakness.

"You don't just desert the Organization, Ophelia. Maybe if it was one warrior number 40 they would barely make much of an effort to slap us down, but you're a single digit. If Eva tips them off they'll have a team made-up of just single-digits put together to execute you." I cried out.

"Okay, calm down. First, it's big sis, not Ophelia. Secondly, did you forget my extensive knowledge of suppressants. I'll give you a tip. Those diluted suppressants I gave you should have had the same effect as a full suppressant if you were knocked unconscious. I can brew some more of them if we run out, and the Organization right now doesn't have anyone with a power that could be used for tracking, except maybe Eva. We just need to avoid being their number one priority."

I felt overwhelmed. A part of me whispered this was a good thing. The Organization wasn't a necessary evil. It was just evil. If we stayed we would just be used up and killed one day. I'd probably never even live to be 15.

"How long have you been planning this?"

"That's not what I expected you to ask?" She said with a cough. "Well, about a year. I was never going to take out the enemies I've sworn to kill by staying in their ranks. I'm also beginning to feel my limits. I need freedom to grow." She took a step back and twirled. It should have looked ridiculous but for Ophelia it was the least ridiculous thing going on.

There was just one problem. For me being away from the Organization and their high ranking warriors was going to cripple my growth. I needed their memories and experience to continue to figure out ways to stretch my mediocre abilities.

"I'm still not sure about this, Op-big sis. This isn't just you wanting to drag me out to fight an Awakened. You want me to throw away my entire life and live as a what? A bandit? Or will we be mercenaries?"

"We can be whatever we want. The Organization has already peaked. The strength of other parties has been growing much faster than theirs recently."

"Couldn't you have asked me first? I'm not your doll to drag around!"

She approached me. Staring me down. Then spread her arms and gave me a bear hug before lifting me off my feet. "Oh, Clare, you're so cute. You're far too cute to be a doll. I couldn't ask you. You might have said no. You might even have tipped off the handlers about my plan."

"I wouldn't have done that." I protested. She put me back on my feet and then I saw her eyes. They were gleeful and excited, but also scared. But their shape were black slits floating on golden pools.

I felt a strange sensation. A buzzy lightheadedness and in a snap decision I copied her memories. I hadn't tried to do it since she'd refused my handshake all those months ago. Ever since she'd begun training me it had felt like too big of an invasion of privacy.

"Ahem." I said clearing my throat. "Are you absolutely sure we won't be caught?"

"Of course, I am. I'll tell you a secret. My power let's me get better outcomes to events. It kind of red flags whether I'm getting hotter or colder to realizing the ideal outcome for myself.

Her memories confirmed this and showed she'd been using it the entire time. Hot and cold were actually a good analogy for how it felt. I noticed then how she was gripping her sword.

"All powers have blind spots." I retorted.

"And so do organizations."

I decided it didn't matter. I never really had a choice and I could still grow stronger like this.

"Alright. Where do you want to go with this?"

"Hah, simple picture this." She said grabbing me and straightening my bent back. When did I start hunching? "We'll head to the central region of Toulouse. We want to avoid the Abyssals to the West and North, and given what happened to Priscilla in the South let's stay away from there too."

I looked to the South. The wall of briars was no more than a thick bar against the horizon. "Fine. How many suppressants have we got?"

"Plenty. About a one month supply for the two of us. If we can't find some of the venoms in Toulouse, though, we'll have to go out and get it ourselves. I think the biggest obstacle will be that Toulouse is the most heavily populated area."

"So we need to avoid being noticed and setting off rumors." I finished.

"Also here." She said presenting me the severed arm she'd been carrying.

"Uh, it's an arm." It was still dripping too.

"Not that. I got it for you from Nimue. I've been getting better at ambushing Awakened Beings before they can get it up. Now chop, chop. Let's stick it on while it's still fresh." Said Ophelia as she teasingly raised her sword.

"Wait, wait! You want to cut off my right arm and slap hers on. Here! Right now."

"Yes, little sis, this is for your own good. Nimue may not have been a single digit, but she was still probably quite a bit stronger than you. After all, she was a former number 12 before awakening."

"How do you know all that?"

"I've been keeping track of Awakened Beings with powers that might have been useful. This was a little underwhelming compared to my more optimistic estimates, but it was useful for a going away battle. We're lucky actually that it turned out to be Nimue. I was worried it might also have been James the "Absolver," who got kicked out of the saints a while back. He could modify memories so you forgot close attachments, but I figured at worse he became a bandit not a phantom serial killer."

That made sense. Another thing we were losing was access to the Organization's files on nearly every warrior who was known or suspected to have awakened as well as their powers or reported powers.

"I...I'm still not sure. Have they experimented with multiple transplants from different awakened beings?"

Ophelia just rolled up her sleeves and showed me her scars. One on each side at the shoulder or high on the bicep.

"Both were strong single digits. The one on the left I got first. It was slow but strong. The one on the right was trickier, though, to harvest. I actually let her escape after our first fight, because I screwed up and she transformed before I could snag it. I cut it off in time the second time. That warrior was very quick and her arm shows it." She said taking a practice swing that I couldn't follow. She even did a backswing in the same motion so her arm was back in the same position.

Suddenly, I realized what this was. It was a consolation prize. I was too weak to get one like Ophelia so she was just giving to me her cast off. I felt a bit of shame.

"Alright, let's do this." I said. I refused Ophelia's offer this time. It was awkward but I managed to cut off my right arm by swinging my sword with my left one. Then I focused on attaching it.

"Hurry it up too. I don't sense anyone nearby, but you're not being very subtle here." Ophelia said before she started humming and cleaning her own blade.

It was easier this time, or maybe I was just more experienced.

"Oh yes, before I forget." Ophelia took out a small pouch of suppressants, and took two. They must have each been half doses.

As I surrendered another bit of my humanity in exchange for power, I watched her transition. Her youki was the first to change. Growing subtler and ephemeral like gossamer before completely fading out.

Ten seconds later her eyes began to darken. The light from within it extinguished or perhaps just smothered by a humane, dirty brown that spread out from the pupil until it covered her whole iris.

It was horrifying and yet beautiful. To see a half-monster clothed with humanity. Beneath it all, though, she was still the slightest bit feral. A monster whose own memories betrayed that she would have killed me if I had refused to defect with her. This was my sister, Ophelia.

«-»

Author's Note: Ihope this Ophelia still feels like she's based off the Canon one. Some changes are inevitable because Priscilla did not kill her family while rampaging like in the original series. She's still very much a psychopath who loves the thrill of fighting and will do many things to obtain revenge. Her hatred of Awakened Beings, however, doesn't exist, since it wasn't Priscilla who destroyed her family.

«-»

* * *

Omake 1: Hunter Tactics I

Hunters have generally taken to three types of combat: swarm tactics, manipulation and direct combat. Depending upon the type of Dragon-kin your imperial regiment faced you may need to adopt one or more of the tactics. A legion of immature Dragon-kin can be tackled by a strong direct combat team or manipulation tactics that turn friend and comrades against each other (Brawlers, Archer, Commander - subtype Manipulator). Swarm tactics will not work, however, as they will already have large numbers and superior quality to the average empowered or heavily armed infantryman (Collector or Knowledge Bearer- subtype Innovator).

Against mature Dragon-kins the opposite holds. Direct assaults will be crushed by their superior might in many cases. Indirect methods to neutralize their efficiency by directing them to worthless targets or exhausting their strength against disposable constructs or soldiers are another option (knowledge bearers, commanders, archers - subtype Sniper). Many weaker manipulator powers simply will not work or are difficult to setup against their large frames, so it is best not to rely on them. Conversely intercepting and confusing communications or lines of command are a far cheaper ways to effectively negate their battlefield importance.

Finally, the worst type of Dragon-kin assaults are mixed group assaults. With both the numbers and quality they are more well-rounded and often these larger groups often feature two separate chains of command, which make infiltrating and subverting them both much more difficult.

One approach is a hybrid of the previous two strategies. Send Brawlers and Archers against immature Dragon-kin hordes and let soldiers operating innovators equipment with power granting collectors or commanders backing them up take on the mature Dragon-kin.

Unfortunately, the Dragon-kin are not fools and want the exact opposite match-ups. The success of such a maneuver, therefore, may depend upon the quality of your knowledge bearers and tacticians relative to the enemies as well as your relative mobility.

Thus, the Alliance has a trump to play at those times. They call upon the farmers and their disease laden monsters. The worst enemy of all is not brute force, elegant information sleight-of-hand, or manipulations of powers or souls. It is the great equalizer-death. All things die and the source of our death, if it does not come prematurely, is not the monsters of the abyss or the divine tribulations of the heavens. It is usually a still small cough that lingers and scars over and over.

There is a saying that became popular during the Pax Hunter period prior to the breakdown of peaceful negotiations in 711. It is that "Most hunters ratings go from 1-10 but Farmer's are rated 5-15." Eventually, the title Hunter came to refer to a power holder of any class except Farmer. There were hunters and farmers, but the one to truly fear are Farmers.

«-»

Author's Note

Just a reminder that, while the setting of our story has two names for power users/god-touched, in the rest of the wider world the terminology "Hunter" is used for anyone with special powers.

In this chapter the Innovators are still considered a subtype of knowledge bearers because this is the system used on the mainland. The revisions proposed by Fel were eventually adopted by the mainland, but it would occur much later and entirely independently. The reason a centralized guild or union was not formed earlier on the mainland may be related to greater economic competition and a lack centralization from competing research and military bodies.

«-»

* * *

Omake 2: The Dress

It caught my eye. There was nothing bright about it. It just triggered a memory that I'd cherished and prized almost above all others.

"Oh, do you like that dress, Clare?"

"Yes, sister."

"Kind of plain, though, but I like the leather and the color. Easier to hide stains that way."

 _(You should ask for it in Brown. Hehehe.)_

"It's not practical. Since it's a short sleeve it wouldn't hide the scars."

 _(They should be your pride and joy, Clare. Not that I'd know since I never got any except my stigmata.)_

"Not everything should be about practicality and efficiency." She fires back.

 _(Agreed. For once listen to the feral cannibal.)_

The shopkeeper notices us looking through the window. He tries to motion us to come inside in a welcoming manner.

"These humans are so desperate for business. I bet the market for fine cloths is drying up here."

"We should go. We can't afford this." I say as I begin to walk on. Ophelia joins me a second later.

 _(Aww. Cheer up, Clare. You're a free agent.)_

Who would have thought our biggest problems would be money problems. It certainly made me feel a little silly. I'd felt like an important elite, but swinging a sword hard and fast isn't terribly important or valued if you have to avoid attracting attention by killing yoma.

"You know, large bandit groups aren't all that common, but I bet we could scrounge up enough for that if we lure in some pickpockets or muggers and clean them out instead." Suggested Ophelia.

 _(Hehehe.)_

"Thank you. I appreciate your suggestion, but it...I really don't think I could handle it." I am weak. That dress is like an embodiment of my weakness.

 _(No, that dress was stylish.)_

"So finicky. We're not saints, Clare. Can't afford to be either. If you don't want to hit up some muggers than let's split up and I'll do it by myself."

"No I mean, sure I'm up for punishing some robbers. Let's split up though to cover more ground anyway. We can meet again at the Cowlick Inn"

 _(They should really change that name.)_

"Alright. That's the attitude. We'll make a game out of it. Whoever brings in less money will sleep on the floor with only her Claymore for bedding."

 _(Go for it Clare. Show her who's boss.)_

"...sure, I'll do my best." I said.


	17. Chapter 17

Interlude: Isley

"Still no response from Riful?"

"Yes, Laeticia is still reporting back, so she hasn't been killed, but she faces daily attacks. Most just appear interested in testing her strength."

"That's fine. As a single digit from Riful's generation, she's a master of survival. At worst, her partner Diana should be able pull her out in time."

"Sir, the troops are growing more and more restless. You may have solved the food supply issue in the north but population estimates have been falling everywhere else. The Yoma only look like they're under control because so many have moved to the South. This is the perfect time-"

"Rigardo, if any of the troops are dissatisfied with my leadership you may tell them to take it up with me personally. I will handle things at my own pace."

"I see."

"Leaving that aside, who have you picked for the next scouting group."

"Xavier, Sonata and Cassie."

"Two awakened and a stealth expert. Strong, but I don't know how much useful information they will get. Isn't there a young boy from the new citizens, who can number the people around him in order of how dangerous they are? Tell them to take him along and protect him."

"His family might object."

"Promise them more compensation, and that the others will do their best to keep him safe. If they absolutely refuse, do that growling thing you do, but don't hurt them."

"I do not growl, but if they still cling to their son I'm just sending the three of them."

"Alright, is there anything else?"

"Just some details about the crop and info on a new drug to suppress awakening that one of the subjects was being used for."

"Share it with Kathy in our research group then."

As soon as the door shut a spider web of cracks appeared in the corner. Shortly after a woman walked through it.

"So grumpy. Does he really think we don't know?"

"Don't underestimate him like you did the church, Agatha. I won't save you again."

"Oh please, you weren't just helping me. You were helping yourself." She said sitting on his lap putting a hand behind his neck.

"Better women than you have tried."

"So cold. What's with your fascination with this new Biodoctor. You didn't even tell Rigardo that you've already read all of her reports, or have classified one of her projects."

"She was wasted in the Farm."

"Oh, I don't disagree. Who cares about allowing Claymores to exceed their limits, or finding the most compatible pairs. That new drug of hers is far more interesting. What are you going to call it?"

"She suggested 'Extremis.' It has more positive connotations than your suggestions."

"Oh posh. You know you love the thought of calling it 'Tears of the Abyss.'"

"We want to distribute it broadly, not get our distributors hunted down by the church or the Organization. Even Riful would sit up and pay attention at a name like that."

"Really, it's not you going soft on her."

"I'm plenty hard thank you very much. They should really have called you 'Bloody, Green-Eyed Monster.'"

"I'm just curious. Besides no one has nicknames like that. We all lived in like nuns in an all-girls school. Those perverts probably liked the idea of all male handlers around sexually frustrated teens even if they found out stigmata too disgusting to contemplate touching us."

"I confess I never thought of it like that. For me it just felt like being in the army again among other faceless soldiers. The numbers were a nice touch. Boil down our identity to mere numbers, and then pit us against one another."

"But it didn't work."

"It did for Rigardo."

"Only because he's a workaholic ass, whose best idea is to recruit and March an army south."

"He's a military man at heart. Your own short-coming is you don't know the value of loyalty and a shared vision or dream for the future?"

"Is that so, Silver King? Then tell me what do you dream of when this whole land is ours?"

"When I was young you couldn't go father than ten leagues before stumbling across a village. Even the north was covered in towns and Pieta was a trading outpost for areas farther north rather than the peak of the known world. I had a nightmare one day that I walked through a baron world with just me, Riful, and the Abyssal of the South glaring at each other. Until one day we devoured one another. Then the winner was all alone."

"..."

"But we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves, Agatha. We still need to know more about the South and Riful seems to still consider us Herbivores."

"She is living in the past. We're the future."

"No, we're also relics of the past. Look out there. Those people are the future. Or rather they will be after Extremis has finished its work."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 14: Plebeian Window Shoppers

"Goat or rabbit on a stick!" Shouted a man beside a food cart.

Me and Ophelia weaved our way around the manure in the streets. We were in the free city of Rabona. Once it had been part of a kingdom that stretched across Lautrec and Toulouse. Mucha and Alphonse were separate territories, with their own lords, but existed in the shadow of the central kingdom.

Now days it was a shadow of its former glory.

Hints of new prosperity poked out here and there. The windmills on captain's hill, the dark red alloy weapons and crisp uniforms of the cathedral and city guards, or the way almost no orphans remained on the street corners and alleys.

Still, it stank. It reminded me of the smell of a corpse and a manure pile mixed together and left to rot for months.

"We should have gone to Saintshold." Bemoaned Ophelia.

"This is suicidal enough." I protested. We were criminals just for entering this city. The high walls, the "God-touched" stationed here, and our claymores being carefully hidden outside of town were all making me nervous. I rubbed the stolen sword strapped to my side that had once been the property of some foolhardy thief.

Then there was the other thing. I felt a fifth Yoma to my left about three houses down and on a second floor. We had been checking the local rumors and there didn't appear to be panic about missing people or people being killed. Either they were on a diet, are the people nobody was going to miss, or found some alternative form of nutrition.

Whatever it was, we were going to ignore it. A few of the towns on our way here I'd discreetly taken care of the problem while Ophelia cleaned out the Yoma's home as compensation, but we needed to keep our head down here.

"Let's check for rumors at a bar." I suggested. Getting this over with and getting out of here was high on my to do list.

"Oh Clare. No one with a real job is at the bars right now. Let's see the sites until this evening."

After a bit of back and forth we settled for visiting the Oldest Branch of the Scholar's Guild instead of the Main Cathedral of Rabona. When we asked for directions, we were directed back out of town. In the middle of an empty field was a row of newly erected houses with one large wooden tower in the middle. Apparently after the last explosion and fire they had been exiled outside of the city despite their own work having prevented the fire from harming any properties that weren't directly adjacent. Of course, the fumes also resulted in a fifth of the city being high for six hours.

After a little searching we found a shop with a sword and shield emblem above it. Inside the shelves and wall were surprisingly bare with only a desk and some chairs for furniture.

"We're interested in purchasing some handheld weapons for a cross-country expedition." Ophelia claimed.

"If this is the right place." I added.

"You got the right place." The shop clerk reached under the desk and pulled out a packet of papers. He passed them to me.

"Sorry, Mr., but we can't read." I said. I actually had plenty of memories of reading and understanding everything that I saw, but neither me nor Ophelia had ever actually been educated and taught to read. Each warrior was actually given an emblem, usually some variation of a sword one, for communication such as with black cards or pictographic warning messages.

"It's John. John Gramme. Most nobles or wealthy merchants don't send illiterate servants to make orders." He said suspiciously.

We looked at each other. The clientele of this wooden, ramshackle looking store was much wealthier than I expected.

"Our employer is actually not looking to make any purchases right now. He wishes for us to evaluate the merchandise and report back on what we've seen." Ophelia said smoothly with a charming smile.

John scowled at that. "If he thinks he's too good to do his own window shopping then you can go back and tell him we're sold out and too busy fulfilling other people's orders."

I guess that wasn't the right tactic to take.

"Alright. We can report that." I said. "But since we've come all this way, would it be possible for us to window shop ourselves for personal purchases."

He tapped his chin. "Fine. But you ladies don't look like you could afford anything beyond the low end merchant's catalogue. That paper on the top of the stack you really ought to read, but I can summarize it for you. Everything you can see in this shop is guaranteed to work for two weeks or your money back. After that reliability can get spotty with some gear insured in a case by case basis further to a month or even half a year, depending upon the material and intricacy involved. All sales are final, and returns if it failed before the guarantee ran out require you to submit the entire piece. Thus, any consumables or single-use items are not insured because you can't bring it back and show us what broke."

"Wait, what happens if it fails in the field. Then we bring it back and it starts working just fine the next day."

"Tough luck. You need to prove we made a mistake. Honestly, only one or two percent of our customers ever even run into problems that qualify. Half the time it's their own fault too, such as the boy who bought a skybird kite from us and then flew it in a 46 knot winds. We still gave him his damn money back, but thanks to him the contracts for airborne devices now have extra caveats. Usually something breaks after the guaranteed period and they'll come back wanting to negotiate for repairs or servicing. That price can sometimes be worked out ahead of time, but some artificers also just hate doing repairs and set sky high prices for it."

He plopped down a new stack of papers. It was much smaller than the previous stack, which he took back. "These are novice creations, experimental models that still need some more testers, or low end devices that will only be a modest improvement over those available elsewhere. Most you can probably get a good price on maintenance because they'd like to see how it could break down, but the rest generally is not worth paying the cost to get it fixed."

Most of the papers in this stack came with pictures or diagrams. Although I couldn't read I was still familiar enough with my letters to sound-out the titles to some of these. The first one had a picture of a block of what looked like ice. "Har-den-ded Gl-asse" I puzzled out.

"What is this used for?" Asked Ophelia curiously.

"Ahh, it's one of the improved raw materials our glass artificer and geology artificer helped us develop. It's exactly what it sounds like-hardened, reinforced glass, which is several times stronger than traditional glass but a tad heavier as well by about 10 or 20%."

"Is that only good for 2 weeks?"

"Of course not." Said John. "All of the raw materials shouldn't have any requirements for regular maintenance. A few will have stringent storage conditions, though."

The next sheet was of a bottle filled with pills. "Grot-h form-ul-la"

"That's for farmers or cattlehands. Too expensive for most crops, but it can promote growth in even full size plants or animals. Some noble wanted a giant cat, and this was one of the by-products of that research. Unlike the official formula, though, this one seems to make the subject's flesh mildly toxic. It's not meant for livestock or agricultural goods, but for sheepdogs, perimeter plants, or maybe flower growers."

We kept on browsing and discarding items. Fast drying adhesives. Fine metal ropes, and booby trapped safes. Honestly, that last one I couldn't fathom a reason for it even being listed. Who needed a safe that was guaranteed to work only for a month.

"Where are all the weapons or armor?" Demanded Ophelia impatiently.

With a sigh John told us. "Weapons and armor tend to be among the most heavily desired items for purchase. We also don't want a bunch of weapons and armor leaking out and being picked up by the Red Hand after they murder our customers. Consequently, they tend to be on the very high end, with most who purchase it already having access to private guards as a first line of defense."

Then he picked up the remaining papers and dug through them to pull out three sheets. "These, however, are available and may be in your price range. They're all single-use weapons, which shouldn't surprise you, and they all have the same maker. He creates them in large quantities with the condition that whoever purchases it please use it to destroy Yoma whenever possible."

We examined took the selected sheets eagerly and found two types of bombs and a throwing needle. The first bomb appeared to be some sort of smoke-bomb similar to what Wendy had used in our last battle. The second one was packed with powdered chilis and wouldn't be all that special except it came with an antidote that could be pre-applied to yourself so you wouldn't be affected by it.

"Why is the throwing needle single use?" I asked.

"It has a potent poison applied to it and is designed to break off after it penetrates inside to make it harder to fully remove. The poison is actually a concoction of multiple lethal strains that should hamper even a Yoma's regeneration. It is even potent enough that you can apply it to yourself, and then if you're eaten it can affect your attacker. We're calling it 'Viper Sting.'"

I looked at the price and received a bit of sticker shock. We had received a decent education on numbers from the organization to avoid being cheated if our handlers were temporarily unavailable and to be able to give more accurate oral reports. Consequently I recognized the price tag as one and a half times our current budget even after what we'd raided from thieves and yoma.

"500 Bera!"

"Yes, it can give some sticker shock. I should add it comes with a tiny crossbow to aid in firing, and also if you're not dealing with Yoma you can probably still reuse it after resharpening it, and it'll be potent enough to kill."

The smokebomb and pepperbomb+antidote were 160 bera and 300 bera respectively. I was suddenly feeling very poor.

We discussed it and decided to purchase a smokebomb. It wouldn't break, only begin to decrease in effectiveness starting from a couple months from now. It also claimed to even be able confuse a yoma's sense of smell.

I was beginning to regret not having thought to take Wendy's remaining armaments before we fled. On the other hand, it might have backfired if using them was too complicated, and it may have made the scene look more suspicious.

In any case, John appeared to take some amusement at our reaction to the prices. With about half the budget we'd walked in with we left the store. John had actually issued us a ticket and given us directions to a house several down and off to the side. There we redeemed out ticket and were given our bomb along with extensive instructions about range, the speed and duration of the visibility obstruction, and, of course, cautions about not trying to store it too long.

Unfortunately, we had not been able to learn what we'd originally intended to from this trip. We wanted to gather info about possible devices that enemies may deploy against us. We'd heard rumors of razor-sharp blades that were unbreakable, fire sticks that could spew lightning, and traps that could quickly tear a battalion of people apart if they struggled. None of those had been held by the red hand of the two times Ophelia had encountered them. But my own encounter with them, and the non-standard crossbows they'd deployed to exploit the shadow-user's mobility, possibly suggests they're eager to combine mundane equipment with powers.

Not to mention we were also criminals. Rabona "welcomed" us back through the gates with her stinky embrace. It was time to hit a few bars to gather info before we tried to find a guide or caravan to join.

Fortunately, the city guards were not as numerous as they normally would be. The militant faction (also known as the Crusader faction) of the Rabonian church had finally managed to mobilize their forces together with the Saints to launch a new campaign. This campaign was targeted to the South. To breaching the briar wall, and re-establishing a land bound connection with our Southern neighbors.

As I entered a bar, I couldn't help wondering who was crazier. Ophelia, or the militant faction of the Church of Rabona.

Author's Note about currency:

The currency in the Claymore world looks like a gold cylinder rod. Judging by how Clare quotes a price once in the series of 10 million Bera for a statue, which is perceived as outrageously expensive, I'm going to assume that in Claymore a Bera is supposed to be about 1 yen. Thus, 100 bera would be approximately equals $1. That said, I think the thought that a golden cylinder is equal to a penny is a bit outrageous, so let's suppose each bera is worth about $0.50. That would mean Clare had priced her statue at $5 million.

By the way, the militant faction is the polite term for the group of Rabonian elders and other influential leaders in the holy city, who wish to go on the offensive against the powerful Voracious Yoma throughout the land. Whereas, in Fel's interlude they're called the Crusader faction, which has more negative connotations and is slightly more derogatory.


	19. Chapter 19

AN: A triple post this time.

Chapter 15: Erinyes Gale

Acquiring gossip is not hard. Even though our espionage classes had focused more on disguises, tailing and information gathering on enemies in the field, I had no problem getting reams of juicy gossip.

Unfortunately, much of it contradicted each other, sounded like outlandish exaggerations or seemed like offshoots of propaganda. In one evening I'd heard that the army was marching for Daering, that the army was getting on fishing boats and being ferried past the wall along the western coast, and that the army was gathering at Saintshold while they moved parts of a device that would help the Saints burn a whole through the wall.

As future camp followers (or would it be stalkers), it would be troublesome if we couldn't even figure out where the army was ultimately heading to.

There were also differing rumors about the Head of the army, Father Vincent, and his right hand man, Ricardo, captain of the Crusader Knights. To some they were tolerant and not openly hostile to Claymores or unaffiliated rogue "God-touched" mercenaries. According to others they were hardline purists with sympathies for the Cleansing Hand.

Frustratingly, neither of our powers were suitable to sifting through rumors or identifying obvious propaganda.

The biggest success of the night was learning about the Valkyries, a group of mercenaries who were in negotiations with the Church to reinforce the army.

Ophelia and I needed to get access to the south, and a large company or army that we could abandon if we were attacked by an Abyssal or group of Awakened was optimal. A fight with a weak or average awakened being may be possible for us, but it would still require us to flare our youki and would immediately out us as warriors to anyone nearby.

"I guess we'll just after check with the Valkyries in the morning," I said as we settled down to sleep in our inn room.

"Yup, this is not quite as adventurous as I'd pictured." Ophelia commented as she started at our jar of suppressants. It was half full.

We had two weeks to get the necessary venoms for the formula, but they were only available from some carnivorous lizards and spiders to the South. The Organization kept a small population in captivity, but with trade cut off our only choice was to go South ourselves or run back to the Organization and try to make up for our mistake.

"Valkyrie. The name makes me think of female Saints. I wonder what sort of capabilities they have?"

In the morning, we tracked down the place the Valkyrie company had been staying at. It was a far more upscale inn near the glassworkers and perfume district.

"You want to join us?"

"Yes. We're saints with enhanced speed and strength. We can also do some tracking. We can definitely pull our own weight." I said.

"Plus, Carla here makes a wonderful pillow." Chimed in Ophelia glancing at me. "And has achieved a grandmaster level in removing stains from clothing. Heh."

"We'll have to see when the boss gets back but I wouldn't get your hopes up. We've been negotiating for a four days on the basis of them getting a twelve man band with five 'God-touched.' If we're suddenly dealing with seven that would require renegotiation and we're already falling behind the Main army."

The woman speaking to us was named Heather and wore a short-sleeve dress. In battle, though, she was apparently a potent brawler wielding a large morning star. It was according to rumor made from lightweight artificer materials, but other than that it was purely normal. But in her hands it did more damage than any weapon of its size and weight should do. However, her power worked I was pretty sure she could give even me a serious trouble in close combat, so I wasn't surprised their group was thinking of saying no.

"How about we have a practice match until your boss gets back? It would give him something to base his decision on." Ophelia suggested.

She agreed. The inn had a back garden, but we were worried about tearing it up, so after picking up her equipment we relocated to a practice yard. Three other members of the company came to watch. A tall man, a stout man and an older woman with a pet cat. Using my power I couldn't see any weakness in terms of durability to her weapon. It appeared to be as sturdy as a Claymore. My power just suggested disarming her. Useless.

"Let's do this to first blood or the first clean blow that hits the torso or head." Heather suggested.

"Do you really think a clean blow by either of you too isn't going to draw blood?" I said.

"What are you talking about Carla? I'm not fighting her. You are." Said Ophelia.

"Wait, what?" Ophelia had been skipping here and grinning like a loon. Why would she give up a fight to me?

"You can begin anytime you want Heather. I suggest now since my partner has carelessly not drawn her sword yet."

"I too thought I'd be facing you. As for the advantage, I don't need it. Prepare yourself Carla."

Our first clash of weapons chipped my blade despite my attempts to merely parry the blow and then grasp her weapon with my left-hand.

Her reflexes were fast, though, and her light weapon let her withdraw just in time.

"You're fast, but your weapon can't seem to hold up to our strength."

"I agree." I said as I sheathed it and then tossed it and the sheath aside. I berated myself for forgetting my own weakness-my weapon. It was more for show and to explain my fighting ability if we needed to deal with any troublemakers while in town.

I settled into a new unarmed stance. Lower to the ground with bent knees, elbows tucked in and upraised arms.

"You can come any time." I invited with a gesture.

Her weakness was her stance or rather her weight. Her powers enhanced her own speed and strength, and the reach and momentum from her weapon only made her more dangerous. But like all warriors her biggest enemy was her lack of mass. Compared to a claymore her morning star only added a third as much mass to her body. She'd also never trained to specifically to compensate for her high strength to mass/traction ratio.

The dirt terrain also stuck out to me as being bad for both of us, since it had been trampled so much and then given loose dusting of topsoil that wouldn't give either us firm footing for power blows. On the other hand, this also meant we would be deciding this based on skill not simply enhanced muscle.

She went for an overhead blow. It was too big and telegraphed of a motion, but what I really wanted to do was get inside her guard. She gave me no opportunities to do so. As soon as the blow hit the ground it rebounded and she used that to take another swipe at me. I backpedaled and weaved. Without a weapon or armor I was the faster of us, and as soon as she saw that she drew her weapon back to a more defensive position.

We watched each other as I circled her. Then the dance began again. After dozen whiffed misses she had me on the run, but irritatingly she was showing no sign of slowing down or giving me an opening. The peanut gallery began making cracks.

"Careful Heather, the spitfire's light on her feet and is reading your moves like you're a milk maid."

"Can I revise my bet?"

"No way, I gave you fair odds before and you went with the safe beefcake."

"BEEFCAKE." Roared Heather who suddenly began swinging with extra enthusiasm.

Sadly, I didn't have any momentum as I was already drifting backwards to evade and she compacted her stance and weight before I could counter. To break this stalemate I would have to either start using more of my youki, talk her into a fury (which might not help us with our actual goal) or take some risks. I seriously wanted to just begin taunting her, but I suspect Ophelia wanted to see more of what I could do. I would show her what she expected and no more.

I started unveiling openings, no, imperfections. Little things repeated over and over. She didn't go for them at first. False openings tend to work better when you haven't been dodging her blows for a minute, but I kept showing them in different places while picking up the pace. She stopped chasing me to just fend me off and throw a few counters, while I waited.

Eventually, she took my bait. An arm just a few centimeters too high combined with a foot too far back and my balance off by a few degrees. When I went for an extra large swing, she adjusted and aimed low towards my thigh, no, my kneecap. Even a glancing blow would have thrown me away-normally. The footing was gravelly here not just dirt. Her last minute shift had wasted too much of her power. I slide my foot a hand span to the left and then lifted it up. A spike on the corner took out a sliver of flesh, but when her weapon impacted the ground my foot slammed down on top of it.

I met her eyes and saw a hint of fear.

To a casual observer I had neutralized her weapon. But I wanted her disarmed not just trapped. I snapped my wrist forward, but she instantly released both hands from it to take a half step back. Then she pulled a knife from her left bracer.

I should have dodged back, but that may have let her recover her weapon. As the slash neared me I lifted a palm and grabbed the hand holding the knife. The knife sank deep into my palm but my fingers closed around the knife-wielding hand. I pulled with that hand while my other fist swung a fast right cross that she couldn't pull back or evade.

It landed on her chin and rocked her whole head back. The other arm that had been raised a second too late to block fell to her side. She didn't quite slump to her knees, but I definitely figured one more blow would have had her on her back or held up by the knife hand piercing my palm.

"Shit, Heather."

I heard more whistling and grumbling. I didn't go for another blow, and swiftly pulled my hand off her knife. It hurt, but not as much as it had going in.

"It appears this is my loss." I said without regret. I had avoided showing off the true principal behind my technique, even if she saw what it was capable of when assisted by my power.

I glanced at Ophelia who looked satisfied and a bit proud. She noticed my look and said, "good job. I'll buy you a new sword, Sis, to replace that broken one."

I frowned at that gesture. Her money was my money since we shared the same money bag.

I turned back to Heather. "We were fighting to first blood, and you unquestionably got it." I said as I sent a trickle of youki to stop the bleeding.

"By the way, do any of you have something to bandage this with?" I could heal it quickly and loudly with youki or slowly throughout the day, but it was best to cover it up since it would noticeably shrink and fade over time.

The stout watcher took out a roll of bandages and tore off a short piece to toss to me. It was not the most aerodynamic toss, so I might have missed it as it tumbled far short of me except Heather stepped forward and grabbed it before offering it to me.

"Why don't we call this a draw to be charitable to me?" She said with an abashed look.

Later that morning, their leader, Grisha, came back from meeting with the church's representative. He and only one other mercenary company had sealed a deal with the church. He was not thrilled to see us even with Heather's endorsement given the poor timing. He'd just spent days negotiating with the church. He explained to us that if he had to renegotiate, the church would probably just expand their order to the Scholars guild rather than risk us arriving too late to reinforce them.

"Look, we're not expecting a big cut from this job. Why don't we work this mission for free. You can treat it like a trial mission, and then when you see what we're worth we'll expect an even bigger cut next time. Besides, they aren't going to reject more power users if they're free. We'll only make everything safer." Offered Ophelia.

I think it was exactly the wrong thing to say.

"I can see now you girls don't have much experience in the mercenary business. A bit of advice I'll offer you is this-no one works for free. People don't just pay us gold to risk our lives. They pay us gold because we are dangerous people and they want to secure our loyalties. There are plenty of berserkers out there who will work for cheaper than the Valkyrie Company and offer just as much firepower. The reason people choose us is because they can trust us to follow orders and to have their back. If I take you with us as volunteers you may just cause a lot of chaos and ruin our reputation." In other words, he found our motives suspect and we'd exposed our inexperience.

From their we received a lot of offers to train with various members later on and to check them out after this mission. I found out the stout man who offered me the bandage was named Jeager and was a leaf manipulator. He could even sharpen and harden the leaves he spun and moved about. He refused to tell me how many he could control or from how far away, but I could see plenty of uses in a support capacity to such a power.

We left them to complete their preparations at noon, with directions to a good smith that would get me the best blade possible for someone who couldn't afford the Scholar Guild's prices.

"Well, that didn't go as well as I expected." Said Ophelia with a frown.

"Actually, I thought it went quite well myself." I said with a grin.

"What are you talking about?"

"I know where the army is heading and when they plan to breach the briar wall." I said while watching Ophelia closely. Her eyes lit up and a smile spread across her face.

"That's my sister. How did you do it?"

"My knowledge bearer power. It can also deal with memories and I was able to dip into Grisha's memories from his meeting this morning." I confessed.

"Perfect."

Ophelia and I took off at a fast trot out of Rabona to pick up our Claymores.

"Wait. WAIT! Guys from the Valkyrie Company wait." Screamed someone behind us.

I turned back and several houses behind us came running up a teenage girl. She was wearing simple, brown leather armor with a broad-axe strapped to her back. Her most distinctive feature, though, was a streak of white off to the side in her hair.

"Thanks for waiting."

"I think you must have misheard or been confused about something. We're not in the Valkyrie Company. We were turned down for the time being."

"Oh, I know. They're already set to go on their mission, and didn't want to add two new members to their company. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I'm an experienced Mercenary who used to be part of the Valkyrie Company. My name is Erinyes, or Erin for short."

"..."

"Anyway," continued Erinyes awkwardly. "I wanted to invite you to join me and make a new mercenary group. With my experience and your raw power we might even be able to handle some of the missions the Valkyries and others normally handle while they're out of town." She spoke the last quickly with plucky optimism.

"Uh, look..." I began hoping to let her down easy. For now we were headed South after the army, and I had a feeling such a dangerous task for no pay was not what she'd bargained for. Plus, we'd have to continue to conceal being Claymores or trust her with our secret.

"What did you say your **full** name was?" Cut in Ophelia.

"Erinyes Gale. But you can just call me Erin. Oh yes, and I've got this awesome power too."

"Generation of a pocket dimension." Said Ophelia. "Oh that is useful."

She walked up to Erinyes and began looking her up and down and then twirling her around to look at her from another angle.

Ophelia must have used her power again. It required a person's full name to be known. If it is, one aspect of it is she can receive a vision of the subject's potential, specifically in use to herself. It was a very optimistic view, which missed anything about the downsides, weaknesses or pitfalls. That worried me in this case.

Of course the other thing I was concerned about was something I'd stumbled upon while going through her memory the day we defected. Her power had identified my own powers as two separate ones: "Beta Tester" and "Shard Parasite."

At last, Ophelia turned to me with a mischievous smile. "Isn't she cute?"

* * *

Author's Note: Heather's power is a brute package (no flight) that extends to anything she wields. Thus, even though her weapon should crumple under the force of her blows it's made unnaturally durable and sturdy while she's wielding it. It's important also for it to be light since another member of their party has a mover power with a limitation on how much weight she can carry. Plus, it makes her blows faster.

"Beta Tester" actually isn't a gaming reference so much as about the fact that there's multiple different levels and stages to testing powers. Alright fine, it is a gaming reference, but it's not like Ophelia's shard is familiar with the gaming reference and picked it based on that.

By the way, Grisha's name is a homage to Attack on Titan so I'm imagining him looking kind of like Eren's dad. Erinyes' last name "Gale" is a homage to the last name of Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. Erinyes powers are going to be kind of similar to Cozen's from worm.

Note: Meaning of the name Carla

Clare is seen in this chapter going by the Pseudonym Carla. It's a feminization of the male names Carl or Charles, which are English. Incidentally, Clare itself is a feminization of the English name Clair or Clarus (which is Latin) and means clear or bright.

Anyway, Carla means "free man."


End file.
